


Forest Fire Bright

by letters_of_stars



Series: Forest Fire Bright [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (but most everyone is alive), (except Edelgard bc it's Blue Lions route and it's hard to get around that one), Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Worship, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Felix is sad! Sylvain is sad! they use cuddle! it's super effective!, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Flashbacks, Fluff and Smut, Glenn's not alive and that causes emotional trauma!, M/M, Marking (light ver.), Post-Canon Fix-It, Sharing a Bed, Top!Sylvain, background ships are Ingrid/Ashe because I'm soft for them and f!Byleth/Dimitri, but it's super background like I said, everyone is just generally emotional, except everyone is alive! we recruited them all! yay!, switching is great, top!Felix, wow just really a lot of angsting and comforting this is!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 136,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24035059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letters_of_stars/pseuds/letters_of_stars
Summary: Sylvain’s hands knead at Felix’s waist. Nice. Intimate. The sort of thing that Felix never imagined himself enjoying so much. “Let me get this all straight. After the battle, I come and find you, and I can kiss you?”Felix hums agreement.Eight years have passed since the Battle of Enbarr. Sylvain is struggling in his control of both Gautier and Fraldarius territories. And Felix hasn't been seen since the night after the battle, when he left a ring, a dukedom, and a kiss behind. Neither of them are prepared to meet again.Or at least, not like this.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: Forest Fire Bright [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180250
Comments: 88
Kudos: 224





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by that (bad) end where Felix goes and becomes a mercenary and only sees Sylvain once more their whole entire lives before sending him his sword right before he dies, which was super dramatic and super gay and super frustrating! I got that ending, said 'wtf was that' and wrote the first fifteen thousand words of this in a sitting.

* * *

* * *

_i have known this heart_

_to be brutal in nature_

_frenzied as a starved beast_

_at the first sight of love._

-Alison Malee

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of summer heat and the sounds of insects in the trees. The thwack thwack of wooden swords and their joint panting is the only other sound. Felix disarms Sylvain and then again and stands there, looking so proud in the Gautier training grounds. 

That’s what he remembers. Felix, smiling at him as he leans down to lend a hand, all awkward limbs of a young teen but with fighting skills built into his bones. Sylvain takes the hand and then yanks Felix off his feet into the dirt. They wrestle back and forth, laughing, and then run off into the forest surrounding the mansion to find the familiar little lake they spend half their time in during the hottest days. Sylvain gathers water in his mouth and squirts it at Felix, who splashes at him in return, complaining about how gross that was. 

Their clothes are hung over various branches and they lay side by side in the soft grass. Felix shuts his eyes and looks dead to the world. Sylvain reaches for flowers and experiments with how many he can decorate Felix’s face with before the other boy finally snaps at him to stop. Twenty-three. Felix shakes them all off into the grass but just gives a slightly exasperated huff when Sylvain saves a pale blue flower and tucks it behind his ear. 

“It’s good luck,” Sylvain lies, and Felix knows it’s a lie, but that makes it not quite a lie—just a story to make life slightly better. A flower can be good luck. A day can last forever. Things never have to change. Sylvain would tell Felix so many happy stories just to see the slight quirk of his lips as he accepts them, one by one, like flowers placed upon his face.

Twenty-three flowers and a whole world their own, filled with a simple summer happiness. Felix is gone too soon of course, as he always is, but with the promise of a swift return. As he always does.

But two weeks later a messenger arrives. Sylvain spies from the upper story as his father hears the message in the front hall from a man who weeps from exhaustion, having ridden straight here from Fhirdiad without rest. Something has happened in Duscur, he says, and the world spins wildly out of place.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Sylvain was never bred to be a lord. 

Well, no, that is a complete lie. He was bred to a lord, raised to be a lord, had the expectations of a lordship hammered into his upbringing every step of the way and right up until his father’s dying breath. 

He’s just not _good_ at it. And now Dimitri is getting after him about the new tax regulations on foreign trade and the new king of Almyra—as much as he likes Claude personally—is a pain in the ass and so difficult to work deals with without feeling he’s being led by the nose and now apparently there are _bandits_ in his domain, right along the northern border of what was once Fraldarius territory but now lands right smack dab in the middle of Sylvain’s responsibilities. Of which there are a lot. Piled on his desk. And spilling onto the floor. He’s going to drown in his own paperwork one of these days. 

Sylvain pushes Almyra aside for a moment so he can rest his head in his hands as he listens to the report on the bandit activity, sighs heavily—which makes a few sheets of Almyran papers escape to Brigid territory on the floor—and then he waves a weary hand at his secretary, the secret signal to just ‘please please please take care of this for me’. His secretary nods and strides away. Sylvain has been giving that signal a lot these days and feels a little guilty he’s forcing so much responsibility onto Linus, but bandits shouldn’t be much of an issue. His territory doesn’t get many to begin with, but there will be plenty of soldiers, or ex-soldiers more, in the area who can take care of this bandit problem. That’s sort of what happens when a war ends and all you’ve raised your children up is to be soldiers. There are a lot of mercenary groups running around, content as long as they’re being paid. If they’re not paid, then they become bandits. But there are more mercenaries to take care of that, and the cycle continues. Sylvain isn’t sure if this is the most dangerous or the safest Fódlan has ever been. It just seems more confusing than ever. 

The confusion was supposed to stop after the war was over. Bad guys lost, good guys won, Byleth is the Archbishop, Dimitri is king, and the union of church and state takes on a whole new meaning when they’re actually married. The whole of Fódlan is being deconstructed and restructured, and while it’s good progress, it means a lot of paperwork and meetings and damned diplomacy where people smile when really they’re showing fangs. 

Sylvain stares at a memo in his hands until his eyesight goes blurry. He can’t remember how long he’s been planted at this desk. Since before dawn, certainly, and he’s pretty sure it’s dark now, though he never opened the curtains behind him all day. His stomach is telling him it’s high past time to eat, and Sylvain knows that the Margrave Gautier is fully capable of summoning a servant to get him a bite to eat, but that seems stupid and selfish and pampered and he’d much rather just nip to the kitchens himself once he makes a little more headway on these notes. He’s due in the capital in three days for a meeting with Dimitri and Claude and several lords of Fódlan. Lorenz, Sylvain knows, and Hilda. Caspar. Ferdinand. Maybe some others he can’t remember right now. He hopes he can catch Ashe and Ingrid knighting around the place. Or at least say hello to Dedue. He always feels like it’s only been a few months since he saw all the old gang, even when it’s actually been a few years. Irreplaceable years. 

Sylvain sighs and drops the memo before burying his face in his hands, running fingers through tangled hair with frustration. He needs to leave tomorrow to make it to Fhirdiad on time, but he feels too exhausted to be of any use. All the old gang, huh? What a stupid wish. Maybe he’ll feel better if he eats. 

The cook isn’t at all surprised to see him stumble into the kitchen. There’s a sandwich and a small glass of ale on the rough wooden table in the corner. Sylvain isn’t sure that he’s ever loved a woman more than Ms. Adelaide. “Don’t be pulling your wily words on me,” the old lady warns with a laugh in her voice when Sylvain stoops to kiss her atop her bonnet. “I’ll be having none of your fancy talk.” 

“I’ll save my mouth for eating, in that case,” Sylvain declares, and for a few minutes, the world is a far simpler, far better place. But his notes are still calling him, so he downs the ale in one gulp and hustles back to his desk. His secretary has taken the liberty of actually lighting the lamps in the room and having eaten does take the edge off of his irritability, so Sylvain is far more content when he throws himself into his chair and goes over those tax regulations again. He wants these all down pat so he can spot the loopholes Claude is guaranteed to try to throw at them. 

“Sir?” It’s his secretary in the doorway. Over the years they’ve managed to whittle ‘your grace’ down to ‘sir’ most of the time and Sylvain is desperately hoping he can manage a first-name relationship in the next decade because nothing makes him feel eerier than being addressed like his father. 

“Yes, Linus, hello. Thank you for lighting up the place.” He gestures to the lamps and Linus dips his head in a quick bow. 

“Of course, sir. Do you wish me to pack your things for the trip to the capital or would His Grace prefer to do so himself?” 

Sylvain breathes a little private sigh of relief. He keeps few employees here, but they are invaluable to him. “Could you, Linus? I’ll be up late tonight, I expect.” 

“Yes sir. The carriage has been prepped, sir.” 

That makes Sylvain pause. “Carriage?” 

Linus bobs his head again. “I know His Grace is more than capable of riding a horse, but it may be easier to review notes while in a carriage, sir.” 

“That...would be right. You’re right. Thank you Linus.” Sylvain holds in his disappointment until the secretary has left the study. He’d been sort of looking forward to the ride, of being atop a horse and being able to stare into the distance, feel the connection of each hoof to the road, feel the wind in his face and smell the fallen leaves in the frosted mud, that glorious smell of autumn fading into winter. But he can’t do that and hold pages of tiny numbers in front of his face at the same time, so a joyful trip will have to be saved for another time. 

Sylvain sifts through his papers and makes notes in the margins of questions he needs answered and data points that need explaining. He gets ink all over his shirt sleeves, like always, and ends up stuffing the papers he needs into a case right before he blows out the lamps and wanders down the hallway to his bedroom, two doors down, separated by what had once been his mother’s room but is now an empty museum of dust. The rest of the household is long asleep by now. He’d told Linus off multiple times when they’d first started working together for staying up into the wee hours of the morning to clean up after Sylvain and his wretched sleep schedule. This margrave is capable of blowing out some damned lamps, thank you. He collapses into bed without bothering to change or wash up. Not much point since he’ll be awake in a few hours. Maybe he can catch a decent snooze in the carriage. 

Here are the facts: it has been eight years since the end of the war. As muddled as Sylvain’s paperwork is, Fódlan is at peace under the rule of the Kingdom of Faerghus. Relations with Almyra, Brigid, and even Sreng are stronger than they have been in a century, maybe more. The Archbishop and King Dimitri are heading a brand new era of society, one that values outside influences and ideas and fights against Crests and the lasting impact of the Ten Elites. Several lords have already surrendered their titles and their lands to the Commonwealth of Faerghus, with more soon to follow as the country adjusts, all tiny steps in the direction of abolishing the power the nobility have held for so long and returning the land to the people under a democratic system. It’s everything Sylvain could have wished for, everything he fought for, almost died for. This is the future he won with the tip of his lance.

And yet. 

Sylvain buries his face in sleeves that smell of ink and squeezes his eyes shut tight like that will be enough to force him into sleep before these late night regrets set in. He can’t seem to escape them these days, the thoughts that slither into being from the loneliness of his bed and the agenda for the coming day. The thoughts that whisper this isn’t the life he’d imagined for himself, eight years ago with the taste of victory on his tongue. 

It isn’t how he’d imagined it at all. 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of snow. Harsh and blinding and swallowing him whole. 

It’s three days before the late Margrave Gautier beats the location of his Crest-bearing heir out of Miklan, three days into that vicious snowstorm in the mountains. Felix has been at the Gautier residence for two days at this point, accompanied by his brother. Glenn is forced to hold Felix back from rushing to Sylvain’s side when they first bring him home, or so Sylvain is told later. It is only once Sylvain’s deathly stillness has turned to reassuring shivering that his parents relax and let Felix see him. Sylvain is in the tub at that point, sunk down into the warm water right to his ears. At ten, he’s old enough to feel slightly embarrassed at being seen naked in the tub, but Felix just throws his little arms—not so little actually, since he’s already started his vigorous sword training by age seven—around Sylvain from behind and buries his nose in Sylvain’s neck, holding him tight until the water has turned cold and Ms. Adelaide has to shoo him away so she can get Sylvain dressed in his warmest robes and bundle him off to bed. Felix still finds him later, because there is not a passage in this mansion Sylvain hasn’t taught him at some point, and Felix would have scared Sylvain appearing so suddenly and softly in his room if Sylvain hadn’t been waiting up for him. Felix burrows into the blankets and knocks his forehead gently against Sylvain’s in the dark. His feet are cold. His feet are always cold. “Idiot,” he says, the latest word he’s learned from Glenn and is fond of using. A lot of Felix’s vocabulary these days comes from Glenn. But then Felix is crying and clutching Sylvain tight to him, whimpering over and over about how scared he’d been, how scared, how scared, how scared. Sylvain cries too, then, the first time he’s allowed himself to cry, the sobs wrenched out of his chest at the knowledge that Felix had been scared for Sylvain himself and not just a Crest. Because he’s not just a Crest, even if that’s the only reason his father worked so hard to find him. If Miklan had been lost, Sylvain isn’t sure his father would have tried so hard. Isn’t sure he would have bothered to keep looking after the first day had passed. Sylvain is only ten, but so astonishingly aware of his worth to the world. 

But Felix doesn’t care about the Crest that was dug out of the little haven of tree roots beneath the snow. He cares about Sylvain, and he’s getting tears and snot all over the front of Sylvain’s nightshirt from crying so hard. It’s okay. Sylvain is pretty sure he’s getting snot all over Felix’s forehead, but Felix doesn’t pull away. Not even after he’s exhausted himself into sleep. Sylvain works hard to slow his own breathing so he doesn’t wake Felix up again, since he is only seven and practically a baby after all, and he finally feels warm again with Felix tucked against his chest. Usually it’s Sylvain providing the soothing words and comfort. Tonight, Felix is the only reason he’s able to sleep without the memories of wolves howling jerking him back awake.

Glenn finds them in the early morning and can’t pry a sleeping Felix away without accidentally disturbing Sylvain. He bundles Felix into his arms and reaches out to ruffle Sylvain’s hair. Glenn is already a knight, Sylvain knows, or at least is going to be soon, and he looks like the perfect knight in the soft light filtering through the curtains, handsome and kind as he checks Sylvain’s fingers and toes to assuage his own fears of frostbite. “I’m sure we’ll see you soon,” he whispers, and smiles lopsidedly. Felix starts to stir then, so Glenn pats Sylvain’s head one last time before sneaking out of the room. Sylvain watches out his window until he sees Glenn ride away south, and then keeps watching for a long, long time, as if that alone will bring them back. 

Sure enough, a message arrives by falcon—Duke Fraldarius has a trained _falcon_ , which is so much cooler than carrier pigeons—inviting Sylvain to spend his winter at the Fraldarius estate. His father is never one to pass up an invitation from Duke Fraldarius, especially if it gets a son or two out from under him, so Sylvain leaves the mansion nestled against the mountains for the Fraldarius Castle, which is bigger and made of stone but somehow so much more inviting than his own home. Down in Fraldarius territory, it is warm enough for snowballs to stick together rather than just crumble, and the snow fights are so much fun, especially when Ingrid and Dimitri arrive as well. Snow is a gentle playmate down here, instead of a consuming monster that haunts his dreams now, calling him back into its freezing embrace. 

Sylvain always remembers this as one of his best winters, one of the best times of his life, even if he nearly died at the beginning of it. 

It is also the winter of The Promise, secret words in a secret time. We’re going to stick together until we die together. And nothing will ever change that. 

And then everything changed that. 

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

The trip to Fhirdiad is, in turn, pleasant, frustrating, wistful, and fleeting. Ingrid and Ashe are indeed there in the capital, knights to their chivalrous cores. Ingrid scolds Sylvain for never visiting and then fills him in on the updates from when she’d last seen Mercedes and Annette, who are apparently doing well. Dedue, ever so conservative with his words, looks reasonably content, even if Dimitri is a little cross because the Archbishop returned to Garreg Mach two days ago after a lengthy stay. Their other classmates seem to be, on average, good, and Claude has maintained his larger than life personality, coaxing out smiles and laughter until this all feels like some sort of strange reunion instead of an international council. 

Sylvain feels like he’s watching it through glass. He’s just a beat too late to laugh at the jokes, and the facts and figures he’d memorized exactly for the meeting that takes place the second day all seem to slip from his grasp. He knows he’s failing Dimitri, failing him miserably, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to break through. Lorenz makes some comment during a break about the search for a Mrs. Margrave Gautier, and Sylvain misses it completely until Dimitri fakes a laugh and kicks him under the table. Sylvain’s ears get his brain up to speed and he snarks back something about Lorenz and his huge crush on Marianne, back in the day, but his heart isn’t in it and he feels that everyone around the table knows it. And everyone is a little curious too. Half of them are married or in committed relationships now, so how is it that Sylvain, of all people, is alone? But no one actually voices the question, so Sylvain escapes the day unscathed, right up until the moment Dimitri finds him that night, staring out the window in the hallway right outside his guest bedroom. 

“Is there anything not to your liking?” Dimitri asks, leaning against the wall and watching Sylvain with a far more knowing eye than Sylvain is comfortable with. 

Sylvain is resting his crossed arms on the stone ledge, staring up at the sky. This isn’t like his territory. Here, the sky is lit from below by the glow of the city. It’s sort of beautiful. Back when Sylvain had first gone home, he’d thought that it was the night sky free from all other light that was beautiful. Now, when he looks at it, it just seems lonely. “Everything is fine,” he tells Dimitri, trying to be casually dismissive without being offensive. But Dimitri isn’t dismissed. He settles against the wall, in sleepwear but wrapped in one of those furry capes of his. Sylvain is just in his sleepwear, one of the sets that has ink on the left sleeve. His bare feet are cold against the stone floor. “Is Dedue here too?” Sylvain finally asks when it’s clear Dimitri isn’t going away. 

Dimitri shakes his head. “No, I asked for some privacy. It helps that no one has tried to kill me for quite some time.” He doesn’t stop studying Sylvain, head tilted to the side. 

The years have been good to Dimitri. Thank the Goddess, because Sylvain can’t think of many people who needed more of a break than His Majesty. His gaunt face has filled out, and the eyepatch he wears is fancier now, a more secure thing that covers all the way to the hairline. His hair is still long, but he wears it up in a way that helps secure a crown when he needs to assert some authority. 

He’s not asserting any authority now, but his words might as well still shake the heavens when he sighs and says, “It would be so different if he was here, wouldn’t it?” 

There’s no question who they’re talking about. The empty chair at the end of the table. 

Sylvain smiles and studies the stars. “Claude never was able to run rings around him the same way. Mostly because I think he would just stick out his foot and call him a moron when he tripped.” 

Dimitri chuckles at that and shifts his weight from one leg to the other. Waits a moment. “Are you doing alright, Sylvain? It’s a very large territory, I know. Maybe…” 

“I can handle it,” Sylvain says quickly and then turns from the window to face his king. “Thanks for offering, but I really can handle it.”

What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want anyone _else_ handling it, and Dimitri doesn’t force him to say it. Just smiles and soon heads back to his own chambers, leaving Sylvain to watch a cheerful night sky. 

***

Negotiations stretch on for days, but they do make progress, significant progress even. In the coming months they’ll be reaching out to Sreng for talks of unification and trade relations, and the king of Almyra seems to be genuinely smiling when they reach an accord, simply pending signatures because that will be an even more formal occasion. “Knocking down walls,” he says to no one in particular, and though Hilda smiles at that, Sylvain isn’t sure he understands the significance. They all convene for a feast at the end of the last day, which Dimitri opens up to the royal guard as well, so Sylvain gets the chance to actually sit down with Ashe and Ingrid to hear about their adventures, the ones he knows Ashe was so eager to have. At some point Lorenz tracks him down and apologizes for his misjudged attempt at humor the other day, but Sylvain waves it away. It’s not a problem. He’d actually forgotten about it. 

He departs early the next day, not that he’s eager to leave, but it is the very end of harvesting season and there was that bandit issue and Sylvain needs to make sure the villages are prepared for the coming cold. Be a good noble, the kind he always thought his father was and then wished his father could have been. He says a hurried goodbye to Dimitri, asks him to pass along his love to Byleth, and then sets off in the carriage for the Gautier Mansion. 

Sylvain decides to try to get a little work done on the way home, so they dip south instead of going straight to the mansion at the border so he can check on the status of a few villages. He’s not an unfamiliar face by now, but the carriage is still greeted by a horde of children as soon as they spot it. Sylvain didn’t bring toys or books with him this time, so he’s quick to promise to visit again, and then goes to see the town leader to ask about any disturbances or conflicts. Aside from a fistfight over an unfaithful wife, everything has been well, and Sylvain promises to bring extra blankets and firewood from the wooded northland when he returns. 

He asks Hugo the stableboy—slash footman slash coachman slash whatever job with horses needs doing at the moment—to stop by a few more villages before heading back to the mansion, which extends their journey by a day and sends them back up north with the sun clipping back down beneath the mountains. As soon as the sun disappears, the cold rushes in, and Sylvain hunkers down with his warm cloak and gloves, studying papers by the stub of candle he holds in one hand. There’s more traffic on the roads than Sylvain would have expected, chatter and hoofbeats he isn’t used to hearing, but bandits don’t tend to take the main paths so Sylvain sticks to calculating how to distribute the extra supply of grain House Bergliez always sends northward come winter rather than staring out his window at the passersby. ‘More traffic’ in this area is only thirty or some people anyways and they travel past quickly, headed southwest. Merchants or something. Hadn’t that been what the bandit trouble had centered around? Sylvain glances over to the side of the carriage where he stashes a lance on the floor out of habit. He’s out of practice, so good thing this was an uneventful journey. Ingrid, Dimitri, and Dedue are always getting on him for not travelling with a guard, which he maybe should have thought of this time, but what guard? He doesn’t employ any these days. 

The windows of the mansion are lit, signaling the carriage from afar and almost making it look like a joyful, populated place. Sylvain puffs out his candle and watches as the carriage draws near. The illusion of welcome fades as they approach and all the windows are revealed as empty, simple soulless rectangles of light that illuminate the way around to the stables at the side. Just an act. Sylvain hops out of the carriage with a yawn before it’s completely stopped moving, thanks Hugo for the ride, and enters through the side door into the kitchen and then through to the hall, rubbing his gloved hands together against the chill. It’s going to snow within the next day or so, he’s sure of it. He’ll have to fetch his papers out of the carriage tomorrow.

The first thing he notes when he enters the hall is the noise. Not a lot of it, but more than usual, and enough to echo. “Hello?” he calls, removing his coat and draping it over an arm. 

“Sir!” Linus appears from around the corner, looking more nervous than usual. “Good to have you back, sir! This is...good timing. Ah…” 

Saints, he’s jittery. Sylvain just wants to grab a simple meal and go to sleep before organizing supplies down to the villages tomorrow. But the way Linus’s words leap around like rabbits in springtime tells him that probably won’t be the case. “What happened?” Sylvain asks, tugging at his gloves and stuffing them in a pocket.

“Ah, well, sir!” Linus gestures back down to the foyer where he’d come from, and Sylvain automatically puts a hand toward a weapon he no longer carries when an unfamiliar hooded figure rounds the corner. A woman, dressed in leather and furs with a longbow strung across her back and a sword at her belt. Why the hell had Linus let someone so heavily armed inside? Sylvain ushers his secretary to get behind him and takes a few what he hopes are commanding steps forward. 

“What’s your business here?” 

She shakes the hood down from her head, revealing red hair like autumn leaves and a weary grin he vaguely remembers. “What, no flowery words for me this time?”

Sylvain blinks, shoulders relaxing just a little. “Leonie?” 

“Sure thing.” The smile fades as they approach each other and Sylvain can examine her properly. Yes, that’s definitely Leonie. She’s cut her hair short again, except for a braid down the side, and it sticks up in a ruffle like she either wants it that way or runs her hands through it so much it created a static charge. She has a few more scars on her wrists and face than he remembers, including a dashing one across one eyebrow that narrowly missed her eye. 

“What are you doing here?” Sylvain finally asks. “Did you—?” 

Oh dear, he knows what she’s doing here. He’d waved his hand, signalling for Linus to take care of it. Take care of the bandit problem. Hire some mercenaries. He always knew Leonie had become a mercenary after the war but, Goddess, he delegates _once_ , and look what happens!

Not that he dislikes Leonie or anything, but Sylvain really isn’t up to dealing with more people from his past right now. He’s had enough reunions these past few days, thanks. 

“You took care of the bandits?” he asks flatly.

She nods up at him, face twisting in a way that screams ‘complications’. “My crew and I took care of your bandit problem,” she says, slowly, like she knows he’s going to take his time comprehending this one. “But one of us got injured, and I thought to take him here to heal.” Yup, there’s the complication. Leonie starts tugging at the braid in her hair, words coming more and more rushed. Nervous habit? “I couldn’t do anything to help. We don’t have any healers with us. Your house was really close, and it was the only place I could think to go. Is that okay?” 

No, it’s not, because he doesn’t want some strange mercenary in his house, but the Margrave Gautier isn’t allowed to say that. Or at least he shouldn’t. Sylvain blinks again and shakes his head a little to clear it. “Yes, yes, of course, whatever you need.” 

Leonie breathes out slowly and smiles again, but it’s a fake smile. Sylvain is an expert. “So, you need to know that...that…” She reaches up to fiddle with her braid some more, brush a hand through her hair, and then sigh. “He’s injured bad. I couldn’t do much. Don’t really want to touch in case I make things worse. But you learned some healing spells, right?” 

Sylvain nods hesitantly. “I...did.” Yes, he did. But every sentence out of Leonie’s mouth is making this worse. First there’s a mercenary staying in his house to heal. Now Sylvain needs to do the actual healing? What next, is the guy already dead or something? He never learned necromancy! Get stupid Hubert or whoever if you want to raise the dead. But just simple healing he can manage. Probably. If it’s not too serious. His confidence rises just a little and he nods much more firmly this time. “Yes, I did. I can help. Where’s your friend?”

Leonie’s expression is growing increasingly uncomfortable. “He was out cold, y’know? And I know he’s going to be furious with me but...but you were the closest and I—”

“We just put him to bed when you came in, sir!” Linus cuts in. “I hope it wasn’t presumptuous…” 

“I’m perfectly willing to help,” Sylvain insists. “Where did you put him? Upstairs?” That’s where all the beds are. He brushes past Leonie, turns the corner, and heads for the stairs. Takes them two at a time and calls back over his shoulder, “I better look at it as soon as possible, right?” 

“Sylvain, you really need to…” Leonie bounds up after him, Linus scrambling up behind them both, wringing his hands. 

“I really need to what? Oh, you put him right next door to my room? An interesting choice?” As opposed to the guest suites or even the long empty children’s rooms. Sylvain does spare Linus a raised eyebrow for that but passes through the doorway anyways, into the chamber that had once belonged to his mother. There’s a lamp lit now, illuminating furniture that hasn’t been used in over a decade, except now there’s someone sleeping in the four-poster bed, hidden by the canopies. “I haven’t actually healed anyone in years,” Sylvain admits in a whisper, feeling more in his element now he’s settling back home. He tosses his coat onto a chair and flexes the fingers of his right hand. “But it’s supposed to come back to you, right?” 

Leonie lunges to catch up and grabs onto his arm in a strangely desperate move. “Sylvain, listen to me, damn it!” 

He stares at her. He’s tired, he’s dusty, he’s spent his last week dealing with politicians and trying to figure out how to keep everyone in his domain _alive_ over the winter, and right now he’d really just like to heal this mercenary so he can pay Leonie and go get some rest. “What?” 

Leonie opens her mouth, closes it, scowls in that cute way she’d always had, and lets go of his arm. “You know him, that’s all,” she mutters, and then stands back with hands on her hips. “I didn’t want it to be a surprise.” 

“Okay,” Sylvain agrees slowly. “Thank you for that.” He turns away and walks to the bed. His patient is curled up under the covers, just like a little child really, and Sylvain pushes aside the canopy so he can perch on the edge of the bed. “Okay, I need you to show me what I’m healing here…” he murmurs, and places a hand on the mercenary’s shoulder to flip him onto his back. 

He can’t say it’s the first time he’s been surprised by the sight of Felix’s face. Actually, it was pretty much a constant, back then, back when things were different. Turn around, and there Felix would be and Sylvain would be struck dumb for a moment by the delicateness of his face, the way his eyebrows pinched and rose and furrowed, the way his scorn or amusement or determination shone through his eyes, the wry line of his mouth. Again, and again, and again, Sylvain was surprised by the sight of Felix’s face and by how much it made his throat ache and heart long for something he couldn’t put a name to, and just how much more it longed when he finally had a name for that feeling.

He stares down at Felix’s face now, pale even against white pillows, shock of dark hair splayed across his forehead and obscuring one closed eye. 

His heart longs. 

“Oh,” he says, and Leonie comes to hover by his shoulder. 

“I tried to warn you.” 

Sylvain nods. She had.

But Saints, Leonie, there’s a huge difference between ‘you know him’ and ‘Felix Hugo Fraldarius is dying in your bed’! 

He reaches up, carefully, to push the hair from Felix’s forehead and check his temperature. He’s chilled to the touch. Probably why Leonie had bundled him up instead of leaving him atop the covers for Sylvain to heal. “I didn’t realize that he became a...that you two...joined forces,” he says faintly, letting that line of conversation lead him to continue guiding Felix onto his back and then pulling back the bloody covers to examine the wound. It’s a bit hard to find at first, because Felix is also dressed in quite a lot of fur and leather, and Sylvain knows from the start that not all the blood on his hands and arms and splashed up onto his jaw is his. But there’s a dark stain in the fur down on Felix’s stomach, off to the left side, and Sylvain’s prying fingers find the stab wound, starting there and then continuing across the gut in one awful, gaping slash. Felix doesn’t even react to Sylvain practically sticking his fingers inside him, which is how Sylvain knows it’s as bad as he thinks. Felix or Leonie had instinctively bunched his clothing over the wound to stem the flow of blood, which is good. He’s not gushing blood at least, though Sylvain’s hands are already turned red.

His fingers are shaking, he realizes. He wishes he could say it was just the cold. 

“We joined up two or three years ago,” Leonie is saying in the background. “We’d talked about becoming partners during the war, y’know? We’re pretty compatible in battle, and we’re good at being mercs.” Yeah, Felix would be. “So when we ran into each other it seemed like a good idea. And it has been! But he got injured out there and wouldn’t let anyone see it and when he passed out a few minutes later I…Goddess, I’m being useless, here, let me help.” Leonie runs around to the other side of the bed and starts tugging away the furs and unstrapping the leather bands, helping Sylvain until they get Felix’s torso bared and he can actually study the wound. Sylvain tries not to be sick. Not just because this is Felix, but because he’s not sure at all he’s good enough to heal this. He only just started magic near the end of the war, after all! But Felix is here in this bed and he’s cold and not reacting and his chest barely moves when he breathes and Sylvain can’t _not_ be good enough for him, not this time. 

Still, he can admit when he’s going to need help. “Leonie,” he says quickly as he begins rolling up his sleeves, “Take any of my horses and ride south. There’s a village about an hour out and they can direct to a good healer from there. You have to bring the healer back, okay? I’m not skilled enough to deal with this myself. Tell him I’ll pay anything he wants.” Leonie nods and disappears out the room, not needing anything else. “Linus?”

“Sir?” 

“Please ask Ms. Adelaide to help you bring up lots of hot water and clean towels and that poultice of hers for infection.” Sylvain can already feel himself begin to sweat with nerves. He’s imagined reunion a lot of ways over the years, but he’ll hand it to Felix for this one. “Please!” he adds again, and Linus is off as well, leaving just Sylvain with a dying Felix. 

“Saints, Felix,” Sylvain says in a shaky whisper, and calls up the power that has lied dormant in him for years, the something in him he’d never really understood that well, except that he was somewhat good at it and it could take away his friends’ injuries. He needs it now, needs it now more than any other time, and it seems to respond. His hand glows white and he places it over bloody skin, staring at the wound and directing the power to first sew together the things torn apart on the inside before sewing together the wound on the outside. His other hand finds itself clutching at Felix’s bare shoulder, spreading more blood everywhere. “Come on,” he urges the magic as he sees the skin close with wretched gaps like his needle skipped over every other stitch. “Come on, come on, come on…” 

The magic stops. It doesn’t start again, no matter how hard he tries to push it out. Sylvain is drenched with sweat and stares down at Felix’s impassive face and then at the wound that, despite his best efforts, still didn’t close all the way. The skin has pulled together in places, in a messy job that will definitely scar, but that isn’t enough. There’s still so much blood. 

“Felix…” Sylvain whispers, and then the name comes more as a sob. He’s not the Margrave Gautier in this moment. He’s just Sylvain, and he doesn’t know how to handle this. “ _Felix_.” He slumps, and somehow his face finds the space between Felix’s neck and shoulder, right where he can hear Felix’s breath in his ear. His steady breath. Breath that means he’s alive. 

Ms. Adelaide and Linus don’t take much time to arrive. Ms. Adelaide has six grown children and knows her fair share of bandages and blood. Sylvain’s pretty sure she was in the room when both he and Miklan were born too. She doesn’t hesitate to clean cuts and mix up her poultice for infections and set a warm towel on Felix’s forehead after patiently wiping away the mud and the blood. Linus is invaluable in handing her supplies and, finally, pulling Sylvain up from the bed. “Sir, Ms. Adelaide needs you to move.” 

“He needs me,” Sylvain mumbles, feebly trying to return to his former position, but Linus deposits him in a very dusty chair with firm hands. 

“Sir, he needs medical treatment now. Please wait for Ms. Leonie to arrive back with the healer.” 

It’s an order, albeit said with a please, so Sylvain obeys, and just watches as Ms. Adelaide works. She doesn’t balk at stripping Felix of all his furs, inspecting his limbs for other damage and tutting when she finds it before carefully cleaning each cut and scrape. Sylvain hates the way that Felix is moved about like some sort of doll, completely unresponsive. 

This wasn’t how reunion was supposed to go. It was supposed to be smiles and handshakes and hugs that don’t last quite long enough. It was supposed to be spat out accusations and bickering back and forth and perhaps even a punch or two. It was supposed to be apologies. It was supposed to be everything that’s gone wrong over the years just simply falling into the right place, because the right people are finally there again and that’s all it takes. It was supposed to be everything Sylvain has imagined it could be, the day the knock came at his door or he spotted the distant figure in the fields.

Not this. Not like this. 

Leonie’s trip back with the healer seems to have happened very quickly, but Sylvain knows he’s drifting here and there and not really keeping track of time. It must have been at least two hours. But what matters is that there is someone here whose hands glow with ethereal light and it doesn’t die out. Sylvain hauls himself up from the chair and watches as the parts of the wound he couldn’t heal are patched over with superior skill. 

Felix doesn’t respond at all when the healer and Ms. Adelaide work together to hold a needle over a flame and sew stitches in the most stubborn parts of the cut that refuse to close even for the healer’s magic, which is probably for the best. The last thing they need is Felix waking up mid-surgery and thrashing about.

Finally— _finally_ — they’re able to wipe away the blood without more gushing out immediately, but Ms. Adelaide and Leonie wrap Felix’s midsection in bandages anyway.The stitches are a bit bloody.

The healer also has a basket of herbs—natural remedies—that he gives to Sylvain once Felix is bandaged and settled into the bed. “He’ll need time. The internal injuries were extensive and there are some things that just need to be left to time and rest. Three days bedrest, two weeks of taking it slow, and then he should be just fine.” He pauses, and then nods a little in acknowledgment. “The wall of the gut was opened by the attack. I think your treatment prevented risk of infection, but he’ll probably be feverish for a few days.”

It takes a few tries for the words to come out right. “Then why is he so cold?” Sylvain asks at last. 

The healer doesn’t seem to mind the question at all, though he’s clearly ready to head home. “Excessive bleeding can cause the body to go into a sort of survival mode. Blood focuses on circulating around the inner organs to keep the body alive, so his extremities can get very cold.” He uses his hands to simulate the blood flow across his own body. “He might also be nauseous for a while, as well as thirsty and irritable. When the fever hits, it means the body has caught up and is burning the bad stuff away, to put it simply. It’s a good sign, so don’t panic.” The healer wipes his hands on a cloth to clean the last of the blood away. 

“Irritable.” Sylvain paws through the basket of medical supplies and nods. “Right. Felix being irritable.” He hears Leonie give a soft snort from somewhere behind him. “Um...payment.” 

Linus touches his shoulder very gently. “I’ll take care of that, sir. You sit.” 

Sylvain nods as Linus leads the healer out of the room and then sits on the edge of the bed. Ms. Adelaide looks at him from the other side, where she’s piling more pillows around Felix’s head and carefully tucking blankets around his slumbering form, but she doesn’t comment. 

“I can take the healer home,” Leonie offers, walking over to lean into Sylvain’s field of vision. “I need to find the gang anyway. Let them know that Felix will live. I think they headed west.” 

That group of people he’d passed on the road. Ugh, how stupid could he get? Sylvain rubs a hand down his face and realizes he’s covered in crusty dried blood. “How’d he even get hurt like that anyway?” he croaks. 

“Being an idiot,” Leonie answers simply. “Saw a group of bandits making a run for it and didn’t listen when I told him to wait for me. And then it turns out they had friends waiting around the corner and I guess sixteen to one is a little hard to handle, even for him.” She sends an exasperated look Felix’s way. “He’s been acting weird this whole time, though, so maybe a near-death experience will teach him a lesson.” She’s definitely angry, and Sylvain almost pities Felix for the lecture he’s going to receive when he wakes up. But she’s also definitely relieved too. Her smile is real this time when she leans in closer to grip Sylvain by his arms and shake him a bit back and forth. “Thank you, for making it only a near-death experience. Now let me take that healer home.”

“Thank you,” Sylvain says, mood lifted a little by the fact she doesn’t treat him like the Margrave Gautier. And then he remembers his manners. “Um...do you want to stay here? While he recovers?” 

Leonie blows out her cheeks and crosses her arms as she glances to the window, where dawn light is beginning to show above the forested hills. “I can’t. We got another couple of jobs lined up, and at least Felix or I have to be there to make sure things go smoothly.”

“Oh.” Sylvain frowns slightly and sinks a little further into the mattress. “Should I...send you a letter when he’s all better, then?” 

Leonie raises an eyebrow. “I don’t exactly have an address,” she reminds him, and then ducks inside the canopy so she can look down at Felix’s sleeping face. There’s a tenderness there that Sylvain feels oddly jealous of, and then she flicks a finger against Felix’s forehead. “Idiot,” she says fondly, and straightens back up. “When he’s ready, Felix will know where he needs to be,” she says with a definitive nod. She goes over to where Felix’s bloody clothes have been discarded and unearths a sword belt. “He won’t need these for bedrest.” She slips the belt on around her own waist. “And you can tell him I was the one who stole them. Now, I’ll be on my way.” 

“I need to pay you for the bandits, don’t I?” Sylvain asks, the realization jolting him into action. He reaches for the few coins he’s had rattling around his pocket the whole trip. Definitely not enough. “Um, let me go…”

Leonie shakes her head. “Your man already paid me. I’m good.” She shoots Sylvain another genuine smile and then, last moment and rather awkward, leans in for a quick hug and pat on the back. “Take care of yourself.”

“You...you too,” Sylvain stammers as she hikes her bow more securely across her back and exits the room. Now it’s just him, Ms. Adelaide, the rising sun, and the unconscious man in the bed. “Ugh,” Sylvain groans, and covers his face with hands that smell of bitter iron. He hears careful footsteps and then a warm cloth is pulling his hands away, first one and then the other, gently wiping away the blood. Ms. Adelaide goes to rinse the cloth and then returns to clean off Sylvain’s face, the way she’d always cleaned away the mud and crumbs and tears. Sylvain closes his eyes and lets himself be treated like a child because he sure feels as helpless as one right now. 

“I didn’t think I’d ever be patching up Felix’s scratches again,” Ms. Adelaide says, voice soft and warm. Sylvain hums. Yes, that’s right. If Ms. Adelaide had been a staple piece of his childhood, then she was just the same for Felix. Every time Felix came running to Sylvain for comfort—whether it was a fight with Dimitri or being scolded by his father or Glenn leaving for Fhirdiad again—it would be Sylvain who wiped away his tears while Ms. Adelaide made ginger cookies that were just the perfect amount of not-sweet. Sylvain had almost forgotten that. “I suppose I should take some meat out of the cellar, if he’s going to be with us for a while,” Ms. Adelaide continues, and then takes Sylvain’s face in both hands and kisses the top of his head. “And you should get some rest.” 

Sylvain blinks his eyes open and glances over to Felix. Ms. Adelaide doesn’t need his words to understand. “We can leave the door open between your bedrooms, and either Linus or I can get you immediately if he wakes.”

Oh, right. There’s a door connecting the suites for husband and wife. Sylvain had also almost forgotten that. The door had never been open the entire time his mother and father had been alive, at least after Sylvain’s birth. There’s a bureau pushed in front of the door on his side. “That would be okay, I guess.” 

Ms. Adelaide nods and pulls at his elbows to get him up off the bed. “Alright. Let me take care of things for a few hours. Get some sleep.”

That doesn’t sound quite fair. “Are you sure I shouldn’t…?” 

A little hand pushes between his shoulder blades, propelling him toward the door. “Go. I’ve been taking care of Gautier children nearly my whole life. And one particular Fraldarius boy. I can handle it without his nosy Grace peering over my shoulder the entire time and getting in the way.” Her voice holds a chuckle in it now, and Sylvain acquiesces with an amused huff. He glances back toward the still figure in the bed once before trudging out into the hallway and making the short trip into his own bedroom. First thing, he leans all his weight against the bureau and shoves it just far enough for him to unlock the door on his side and open it into the other chamber. Yep, Felix hasn’t disappeared in the five minutes since Sylvain left him. Ms. Adelaide has disappeared though, probably to get more supplies, so Sylvain takes the chance to sneak through the door and visit the bed one last time. He looms through the canopy and stares down at Felix, who looks so very, very small without all his furs and cloaks and swords, breathing shallowly beneath the mountain of blankets atop him. Sylvain bites at his lip and reaches out a careful hand. 

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” he whispers, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind Felix’s ear. And then he flits back to his own room, fingers burning where they’d brushed Felix’s cold skin. He manages to yank off his boots and strip off his shirt before collapsing on top of his own blankets. He’s not sure he’s even awake by the time his head hits the pillows.

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of ugly carpet and the way it’s been worn down outside the door to his father’s study, the result of many, many summons over the years. Sylvain can’t wait to see what he did wrong this time. 

He already has a fair idea of what it is he did though. He got caught (and nearly died) fooling around with Lord Gwendal’s daughter, after all. That’s a huge slight on the Gautier family name. But these days, Sylvain is all about slighting the family name. It’s not like he’ll be disowned or anything, and it does make the expectations...a little more manageable. 

Put it this way: if his father is so busy sighing over the fact Sylvain was fooling around with some girls at the stupid party they went to, he’ll not have time to sigh over everything else. 

“Enter,” his father calls, and Sylvain wonders if he actually was just finishing up business or if he just likes making Sylvain sweat.

“Hey Pops!” he calls as he enters, and relishes his father’s wince. He links his hands behind his head and strolls towards the desk piled high with papers. His father stares wearily at him through his reading glasses. 

“Sylvain.”

“Yes?” Alright, what will it be? What has he done wrong now? Lord Gwendal? It has to be Lord Gwendal.

His father folds his hands in front of him and stares intently at a single sheet of paper centered on the table. “Your behavior over the past few months has been utterly unacceptable.”

Now, how to react? With complete surprise? What, really? No, that seems way too sarcastic. On the defensive? Father, what is this vile slander? Similarly obvious. Sylvain’s father prefers sons who are stupid rather than defiant. Sylvain settles with, “Probably.” 

If looks could kill. But no, because his father would never actually murder his Crest-bearing son. At least, not before a few grandkids come along. The times his flirtations actually make it to a bed, Sylvain is very, very careful to prevent those potentially dangerous children of his from coming along. Once he stops being the sole heir to the Gautier Crest, his time is up. He remembers his father from the good ol’ days of the campaign against Sreng. He wasn’t always a tired old man pushing paper around a desk. Sylvain had once seen him decapitate a spy with one stroke of the Lance of Ruin. He’s sure the muscle memory is still in there. He’d also been about three at the time he’d witnessed that so maybe that explains some of his issues. 

Goddess, this carpet really is ugly. He wonders what his punishment will be this time. Training for six hours straight? Extra penmanship practice? Being confined to his room? His father has never beat him the way he beat Miklan, but Sylvain wonders if there would be some satisfaction to it. Actual physical pain is oddly appealing. Maybe he’d actually feel like he’d done something to deserve it. 

His father clears his throat and centers that single sheet of paper just a little more meticulously. “I assume you are aware of the Officers Academy located in Garreg Mach?” he asks. 

Well yeah. Everyone is. But Sylvain’s blood begins to pound a little with excitement. Has he done it? Has he actually done it? He’d given up hope slowly over the years as he’d aged past standard admission.

But now is his father finally giving in and passing him along to the poor professors at Garreg Mach to straighten out his disrespectful, reckless, airheaded son? 

His father scowls up at him, as if daring Sylvain to show any excitement. This is punishment, after all.

“You are to attend the Officers Academy this upcoming year, along with many other young members of the nobility. I expect that this experience will...hmm... _correct_ many of your errant behaviors…”

His father keeps going. Sylvain tunes it out. He’s going to Garreg Mach. He’s getting out of this awful place. He’s heard that the Officers Academy stresses prowess with weapons, but he wouldn’t care if it was penmanship all day, every day. As long as he doesn’t have to do it here. 

“...suitable marriage.” 

Wait, what?

“Suitable marriage?” he repeats, chill sweeping through his body. Oh no, no, no, no. He is not marriageable. Shouldn’t every lord with a daughter be wary of him at this point? He is a scumbag, a weasel, completely unmarriageable, no matter how many young ladies he might charm off their feet. He knows his father has tried negotiating with a few noble families, but Sylvain’s reputation has kept him safe thus far. No possible way his father actually arranged something. So what is this terrible talk of matrimony? Maybe he should have been paying attention.

His father’s scowl takes on an unbelievably exhausted overtone. “Yes. Your conduct has made it impossible for me to arrange a suitable marriage...” 

Oh thank the Goddess. 

“...which is why I suggest you use this year at the Officers Academy to redeem both yourself and your reputation before you return home.”

Time to bow and scrape. Bow and scrape. Getting sent to the Officers Academy is the best punishment his father could have given him. “Yes Father. I will work hard to please you.” His most humble words don't actually fool his father, not for a second, but at least there’s no more lecturing. An irritable handwave and Sylvain is free. He tries not to skip to the door. Doesn’t bother not skipping through the halls. It might confuse the servants, but he doesn’t care. 

He’s out of here. Goodbye barren wasteland of snow and more snow, hello Garreg Mach, with your warmer temperatures and...and other students and a distinct absence of his father. Other students! Sylvain will probably know some of them. He’ll have to see if his father has a list. Though if it’s anyone important he’s sure that’s a lecture for a different time. 

Now, he’ll just cling tight to the idea that he has a way out now. That’s all he’s wanted these past four years.

He’s going to be free.

Maybe now will be his chance to become something other than his father’s mirror image. He doesn’t know how much more of becoming the Margrave Gautier he can manage before he breaks from the inside out.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

The smell of stew wakes him. For a moment, as he rolls over in bed and sits up in the dark, he’s completely disoriented. Is he still in the capital? No. No, he’s home. And someone else is here with him. 

Felix. 

Sylvain ignores the enticing supper set on a tray on his bedside table in favor of rolling off the bed in the most dignified move he’s ever executed, tripping over one of his discarded boots, and collapsing against the doorframe to peer into the other room. Linus waves from where he sits in a simple wooden chair with a book. “Good evening, sir. The duke hasn’t woken yet, but he has transitioned to feverish, which we were told is a good sign.” 

“The duke?” Sylvain slurs, still stupid with sleep. Linus nods towards Felix. Oh, of course. Felix was a duke, wasn’t he? Did leaving his lands to Sylvain ever officially strip him of that title? Whatever. He can be the duke for now. Sylvain drags himself to the bed and pushes the canopy aside. He needs to get that thing tied back or something so it can stop getting in his way, although he’s a bit relieved to see that Ms. Adelaide has dusted everything down. Felix is still fast asleep, though some of the blankets have been folded and left at the end of the bed. The superficial scratches on his arms and shoulders have been bandaged as well. As Sylvain watches, Felix’s brows knit and he tosses his head from one side to the other fitfully before settling back down. When Sylvain reaches to check his temperature, he can confirm that it is _definitely_ a fever. “Well, that’s good I guess,” he says faintly, withdrawing his hand. He leans back from the bed and interlaces his fingers behind his head. “I hope I paid that healer enough. Man knew what he was doing.”

“It would have been significantly worse without your help, sir,” Linus says in a barely-there voice, and turns a page in his book. Sometimes he reminds Sylvain of a young Ashe, shy until anyone makes the mistake of mentioning books, in which case you might as well pull up a seat and grab some snacks. Sylvain just grunts. Sure, his useless healing magic. So helpful. There’d been food back in his room, yes? He backtracks and finds the tray of stew. He locates his shirt and shrugs it on, unbuttoned, before taking the bowl in hand and returning to the other room. He perches on the end of the bed where he won’t squish Felix’s feet and eats while Linus reads. Occasionally Felix tosses his head again or jerks his limbs, but even Sylvain knows this is just the fever and not a sign of imminent awakening. It’s been a while, but he remembers wandering after Mercedes in the sick bay after battles, trying to hone his healing skills a little more by watching her work. Feverish patients were always restless. He doesn’t recall ever finding someone as cold as Felix had been, but by the time the soldiers were in the sick bay, they’d already been dosed with a healthy amount of white magic. The cold ones were the dead ones. 

Sylvain shudders a little at the thought and wonders how close Felix had danced to death. How often he pulls those stupid stunts like taking on sixteen bandits at once without backup. It’s infuriatingly easy to imagine. Felix had never understood how ‘lone wolf’ could be considered an insult. Why did he think Sylvain had to charge in last minute to save his skin so many times? 

But no. Felix had to be strong. Always strong. Always stronger. And that meant leaving everyone else behind. The two things Felix is best at: being strong and leaving people behind. 

Sylvain slurps the rest of his stew from the bowl and yawns. Didn’t he just sleep for the entire day? He’s still exhausted. Part of it might be the white magic. He remembers how learning it had sapped his strength after those initial lessons. Byleth had always made a point of making him sit and rest after their personal sessions, not saying much with either her words or her expression but the proffered sweets in her hands had communicated plenty. 

Thinking of Byleth naturally leads to thinking of Dimitri and then to their short conversation in the palace hall. Wondering how things would be different if Felix was still around. Well, he’s here now, Your Majesty. So what am I supposed to do? 

He supposes he could write Dimitri and send a message letting him know what happened, but he has the aching suspicion that would lead to a whole class reunion in his front hall and that’s the last thing a healing Felix would want or need. Sylvain will keep this to himself for a little longer, even if it’s unfair of him. 

The stew is warm in his belly and his mind remains fuzzy from exhaustion. Sylvain decides he can leave Linus to his book. He glances to his left, just to check. Yes, Felix is still there, despite the brief moment in which he could have theoretically woken up and escaped through a window. Sylvain smiles at the sight of Felix simply still being there. It’s such a strange reality to suddenly exist in. Felix is really here and hurt and _here_ and Sylvain can’t figure out how he feels about that until he really believes it’s true. He stands with his empty bowl and takes a few lazy strides until he can lean over and rub a thumb down Felix’s cheek. Felix doesn’t react, and Sylvain lets his hand slide around to cup the side of his face. He can feel fevered skin under his palm and really he shouldn’t be doing this in front of his secretary or _at all_ , but for a moment, he can close his eyes and be transported backwards in time, for that short while he had when Felix would turn towards his touch with something unknowable in his expression. 

Sylvain wishes he’d had the chance to figure out what that expression was. He opens his eyes and straightens up, fingers slipping from Felix’s face to hang empty at his side. “Goodnight Linus.”

“Goodnight, sir.” His secretary smiles up at Sylvain before his eyes return to the page. 

This time, back in his room, Sylvain takes the time to change out of his clothes, dusty from the road and bloody from the healing. He really needs to shave, but he’s not sure he should be holding a blade near his face right now. His hair is a mess too, now he studies it in the mirror. He needs to tidy up before Felix wakes up or he’ll never hear the end of it. Not that Felix is looking his best either but it’s the principle of the thing. 

It takes a little longer to fall asleep this time, with his eyes fixed on the rectangle of light that is the doorway to the other room. His skin seems to itch all over with the thought of who is there, just out of sight. He burns with his own private fever. Burns and burns until his thoughts turn to dreams, and everytime he wakes in the night, he looks over to the door to be sure the light is still there before falling back into a churning, restless sleep. 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of stone steps, and how his foot had just made contact with the bottom step when he sees _him_ , standing at the top. 

He doesn’t need to look twice to know it’s Felix. His dark hair, his lean build, the way he stands slightly apart from the crowd. Sylvain had known to expect him—has a list of all the students attending in his back pocket—and yet actually seeing Felix here, in the flesh, is surreal. Ah yes, is all Sylvain can think as he watches Felix dawdle near the wall. He never did like large groups of people.

Felix doesn’t see him, though. He brushes a stray lock of hair back into the harsh bun he’s pulled his hair back into and then ducks through into the entrance hall when there’s a gap in the waves of students being led inside. 

Sylvain follows. Naturally. Bounds up the steps and squeezes inside the doorway. The interior of Garreg Mach is grand, sure sure, but Sylvain isn’t here for sightseeing. Or at least, not anymore. He vaguely recognizes some new students he must have seen at parties or luncheons before, but none of them are that memorable, and neither were the parties, really. When his father called him to his office after the Tragedy of Duscurr—before even mentioning the Tragedy of Duscur—and said it was time to begin learning how to be a lord, Sylvain had imagined a much more fascinating lifestyle. But no. No. Instead it was practicing his writing until his hand cramped up, memorizing major names and Crests all over Fódlan as well as their histories going back at least five hundred years, and learning about crop rotation. And the parties. The stupid parties where he was expected to stand tall in his formal wear and drink flute glasses of champagne and make small talk as everyone ate little shrimp on sticks. Diplomacy, apparently. Sylvain didn’t have much patience for it, no matter how good at the lying and the sweet talk he got over the years. Duke Fraldarius must not had patience for diplomacy either, because Sylvain never saw him once at those stupid parties. Duke Fraldarius had something better to be doing than eating little shrimp on sticks. Because while the Gautier influence had dimmed after the Sreng campaign, the death of the king had made House Fraldarius more vital to the Kingdom than ever. 

For four years, Sylvain and Felix moved in different circles that never overlapped. Oh, sure, Sylvain was able to get some reports from Dimitri and Ingrid on the rare occasions their circles came close to his, but for the first two years after Glenn’s death, Felix had pretty much sequestered himself away in the Fraldarius home like a grieving widow. And then the next two years he was off as a squire, suppressing the rebellion in the west. And Sylvain’s father hadn’t really cared. The Kingdom was in shambles and Duke Riegan was soon to die without naming an heir. It was far more important to build ties with the Alliance than with Kingdom nobles they’d already secured connections with. The Gautier and Fraldarius forces were bound together by the Sreng campaign and whatever diplomacy had passed over Felix and his heads while they were playing. The only time Sylvain had even seen Felix was at the memorial, which he suspects Felix’s father forced him to attend. As soon as Lady Rhea—who had travelled specially to conduct the service for King Lambert—finished the prayer to the Goddess, Sylvain had slipped away from his parents to where he’d seen Felix. But by the time he got there, he was greeted by a Duke Fraldarius muttering darkly under his breath as he realized his own son had escaped the memorial. He’d smiled weakly when Sylvain popped up at his elbow. “Ah, hello. I’m sorry Sylvain, my son seems to have misplaced himself…” 

Sylvain had been all set to seek Felix out, but then there was Dimitri at Rhea’s side, still recovering from his own wounds and trying to hold back sobs and Sylvain couldn’t just turn away from that. As the memorial attendees finished their own private prayers and began to talk amongst themselves, Lady Rhea bowed her head and retreated from the public eye. Sylvain pushed his way through the crowd, ducked under a few royal banners while nearby attendants squawked in protest, and then Dimitri was safe in his arms, not whole by any stretch, but at least alive. And Sylvain had never felt so awful about calling Dimitri a crybaby in the past. He hugged Dimitri close and didn’t give a damn who saw or how boys their age were not supposed to cry. Go ahead and cry, Dimitri. I’ve got you. 

Felix wasn’t there at all for the mass memorial for all the others who died that day. Duke Fraldarius stood tall and strong with tears glistening on his cheeks as he mourned a son whose body couldn’t even be brought back to bury. Sylvain held Ingrid tight and stroked her hair as her hiccuping sobs grew more and more violent, shaking her entire body. It was probably best Felix hadn’t come. Sylvain knew the grief Felix felt over Glenn’s death was more than the memorial could withstand. He didn’t need to have talked to him or even seen him. He just knew. 

He should have fought harder to go to him. He should have ignored his father entirely, who declined his requests to visit time and time again because there were more important things to do. He should have just snuck out and ridden south until he reached Fraldarius territory. Sylvain knows that now. But suddenly Miklan was acting more and more violent, more frightening, and there was so much yelling going on and Sylvain wasn't like Felix. He doesn’t fight back. He doesn't even run. He hides. He hid in the kitchen with Ms. Adelaide and hoped the shouting would stop and when it did, the Margrave Gautier had only one son and it was time for them to visit Gloucester territory. No, he could not just ‘swing by’ the Fraldarius Castle. He needn’t visit the Fraldarius heir at all. Surely that boy will be just as busy as you, given his new position. So no. For the hundredth time, no, and don't you dare think of disobeying. 

And Sylvain had obeyed. Had obeyed for four years, and now he can’t look at his reflection in a mirror without wincing. Fake. It’s all fake, an act he learned like a dancing bear. But as long as no one else sees through it, it’s alright. 

He still should have visited the Fraldarius estate, dancing bear or not. 

So it’s with a mixture of guilt and excitement that he trails after Felix, wondering what his approach should be. Subtle? No. He was never one for subtlety. Not too loud and obnoxious though. A hug? A hug would be nice. To feel Felix solid against him, really really _real_ , and a bit of a claim, he’ll admit. He can see girls’ and some guys' heads turn as Felix passes, no matter how quick and brusque he tries to make that passage, and Felix doesn’t need people swarming after him looking for that Fraldarius name. Or, well...he looks good. That could be what’s turning heads. If Felix wants to actually go ahead and court someone then it’s not like Sylvain has any right to try to ‘claim him’. But why is he thinking about that now? 

He’s here! He’s not stuck up north! The sun is warm on his face and the grass is lush and his father isn’t here and apparently there aren’t even classes on penmanship. Plus Felix is here, and Ingrid, and Dimitri too. It’s perfect. 

It’s more than Sylvain could have ever asked for. 

Except he’s lost Felix. Damn. That kid always did know how to hide. But Sylvain’s spotted Dimitri via the crowd of people who want to say hello to royalty. Similar crowds have formed around who he imagines are the princess-to-be in the Empire and the magically appearing Riegan heir. He can hear Dimitri’s nervous laughter from here. He and Felix are peas in a pod, really. If only Dimitri could slink off and hide in the shadows like Felix can get away with. 

Sylvain could get away with it too, but he loves crowds of people. Well, no, that’s a lie. He loves crowds of people he isn’t expected to shmooze. It’s been so long since he’s been with this many happy, chattering teenagers in one place, almost no obvious political machinations in sight! And, oh hey, there’s Ingrid! Sylvain puts his long limbs to use and bounds through the crowd, almost tackling Dimitri to the ground in a way that makes Dedue scowl, though Sylvain has met Dedue before and received a lot of scowling those times too so he's used to it. “Hey Dimitri!”

Dimitri laughs against him, and Sylvain feels like his smile might start ripping at the edges it’s so wide. Ingrid is right there, chastising him for attacking Dimitri, but Dimitri is laughing so loud and the crowd is chattering so much it’s impossible to hear. 

Sylvain scans the crowd, winks at a few girls out of habit, and then sets his sights on finding Felix. 

They have four years to make up for, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the heck, I got bored and wanted to post early. Thank you to those who left kudos and a review last chapter! And thank you to everyone here at chapter two!

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Sylvain wakes in the midmorning this time and immediately swings his feet out of bed to go check on their guest. Ms. Adelaide is sitting in the chair this time, mending a pair of trousers for Hugo the stableboy. She nods towards Felix, still a bundle under the blankets. “He woke up enough to drink some water a few hours ago, but nothing more than that. If you help me, I can change the bandages.” 

Sylvain nods immediately and goes to the bed while Ms. Adelaide fetches wet cloths and fresh bandages from the top of the dresser. Even after so many years, Felix’s face is so delicate, especially now with the absence of his usual scowl. He seems to have avoided scarring his face up, at least. His hair is long again, longer than Sylvain ever remembers it being, half done up with braids decorated with occasional beads while the rest has escaped the ponytail and lies in more matted braids upon his shoulders. It’s a feral look, fit for a mercenary, and no one in passing would ever guess that he's actually one of the nobility. Or was, at least.

“Alright, can you lift him so I can unwrap the bandages?” Ms. Adelaide asks gently as she arrives with her supplies. Sylvain nods and peels away the layers of blankets, each one more sweat-soaked than the last. He clambers up onto the mattress so not to be in Ms. Adelaide’s way and carefully leans forward until he can slip his hands beneath Felix’s shoulders and lift him into a semi-upright position. Felix’s head lolls backwards and Sylvain quickly adjusts so Felix’s cheek rests against his own shoulder, safe and secure. Shallow, warm breaths puff against Sylvain’s neck and send shivers right down to his toes, but he can’t let that show. Felix doesn’t exactly smell great either, blood and sweat and woodsmoke, and Sylvain is fine to let that show. Ms. Adelaide laughs at his expression as she unwraps the bandages and sets them aside. The stitches have held, and there’s just a tiny bit of blood that has leaked out, dried now, so it must have been just after the stitches were put in. Everything looks pretty flawless, except for those patches of skin that run white and bunched, all Sylvain’s handiwork. Already that skin looks like another small scar to match the ones already scattered across Felix’s entire body. Ms. Adelaide makes a pleased sound when she looks at the wound, Sylvain’s awful healing and all, and begins re-bandaging with clean supplies and some of the herbs they’d been given ground into a paste to spread along the wound. “I’ll prepare a bath once he’s well enough.” 

Oh, Felix is going to love that. Sylvain grimaces as he sets him back down on the sheets and replaces the blankets one by one. Being dumped in a bathtub while he’s not able to fight back, that is definitely a Felix thing. He finishes settling Felix back into bed and nods at Ms. Adelaide. “I’m going to move a table in here so I can work. Just let me clean up a bit.” 

Ms. Adelaide places the bloody bandages in her bowl, along with the herbs and the trousers she’d been mending. “Would you like me to call in a few of my boys?” she asks. “They’d be happy to help out around the place for a few weeks.” 

Sylvain slides off the bed and wipes his hands off on his trousers. They’re all sticky with Felix’s sweat. “Eh…” When his father had passed away a year after Dimitri’s coronation, Sylvain had found himself with a mansion full of servants he simply _did not need_. Ms. Adelaide was happy to be the cook, there weren’t enough horses to justify more than one stableboy, and once he’d hired Linus from Fhirdiad, there didn’t seem to be much point to the butlers and maids and people to manage the wine cellar. So all the other servants had been let go with generous pensions, and when he’d realized dirt was still a thing even with so few people around, Sylvain had asked a widow from the nearest town to come by and clean about once every two months, with a nice salary to support her and her three kids. It seemed the least he could do, since the dead husband had been one of the poor saps to follow Sylvain into battle. The system worked. Sure, the mansion seemed a little empty at times, but it was also nice and quiet. 

The older he gets, the more Sylvain is coming to appreciate the quiet. He’d never really understood the appeal when he was younger, didn’t understand how the Professor or Dedue or Felix could just stand or cook or train without peppering in conversation, but that was before his ears would still ring with the chaos of war and the sound of screaming. The silence is a precious thing now that he’s known a world without it. 

“I think we’ll be alright with just us,” he tells Ms. Adelaide. “You know I can always help in the kitchen if you need it.” 

“Not a chance, dear,” she replies immediately with a simpering smile which is a little unfair. He’s not that terrible a cook, not really! But Sylvain shakes it off and goes to make himself presentable. He lights a fire in the ash-stained fireplace so he can heat a small bucket of water, enough to wash his face and shave and get the worst of the tangles out of his hair in the little closet area he’d repurposed as a washroom back when he was twenty-six and still cared about that stuff. He doesn’t feel like preparing the bathtub for a full wash, not now. The bathtub is all the way downstairs, first of all, and it takes forever to fill the basin with hot water. The Gautier Mansion had never embraced the idea of bathhouses, something Sylvain’s father had been stupidly proud of. Look, we proud northerners still heat our water over the fire and take an hour to fill a stupid bathtub for a five minute soak! So manly and traditional! Sylvain had promised to update things, once upon a time, before his father died and he realized how busy being a margrave would make him. Now, he opens the window and tosses the cooling water in the bucket out onto the grounds. 

Water drips from his hair onto the shoulders of his new shirt as he locates a small table in another room down the hall. There’s so much extra furniture left over from when his father died that Sylvain has no idea what to do with. At least this table will have purpose. He maneuvers it into Felix’s room, thanks Ms. Adelaide for her time, and then sets up. Linus had, in his own efficient way, already gathered the papers Sylvain had abandoned in the carriage and filed them appropriately, so it’s easy to grab his notes and books and maps from the study next door. Sylvain goes to each window on the side of the bed and shoves back the curtains before tying them in place with messy bows. Natural light floods the room, and Sylvain makes sure the canopy of the bed shields Felix’s face so he can continue to sleep. Soon enough, he’s working fairly efficiently at his makeshift study, even if this chair is not quite so comfortable as the one he’s used to. Every few minutes he glances up to check on Felix, but nothing changes. Felix moans softly and tosses a bit in his fever and his face has gotten all scrunched up and stubborn just the way Sylvain remembers it. It would be cute if he wasn’t burning up. Actually, it’s still a little cute. Sylvain attempts giving him water a few times by gently lifting his head and guiding a cupful to his lips, but most of it trickles down Felix’s chin and down his neck instead of into his mouth. 

Two weeks, Sylvain remembers as he lays Felix’s head back down. He’s going to have Felix for two weeks. An errant thumb strokes along his jawline, where only a hint of stubble is beginning to appear. Felix had never had much luck with the beard thing. He’d always been meticulous about his appearance though. Even when they were kids, Sylvain would be the one with mud on his knees and leaves in his hair while Felix perched in the top branch of a tree like it was teatime. He was just like Glenn, so neat and clean in his gleaming armor, and Felix had been so proud anytime he was compared to his brother. He’d smiled so much back then. They both had, really. 

So, has reality started to sink in yet? Sylvain guesses so, maybe. Now he can have time to consider how he feels about Felix’s abrupt reappearance in his life. After all that, you know, trying to heal the gash in his gut and keep him breathing. Saints, how is he supposed to even begin? He still can’t seem to call up any anger, just a slight warmth deep in his stomach, though maybe that’s just hunger. There’s a lot of things that Felix did that justify anger, but it feels so damn good just seeing his stupid face. Sylvain clenches his fingers and stops himself from reaching to stroke Felix’s cheek again. He can’t let himself do that. It’s dangerous. 

Mostly he just wants to know why. Because he’s lived with his own answer for eight years and maybe hearing it from Felix’s own lips will finally make it true. 

Why did Felix leave?

It was Sylvain’s fault. 

Sylvain sighs heavily and returns to his makeshift desk. He’s really damned tired. And hungry. He should get breakfast. But he won’t, because that would mean leaving his work and Felix all alone in here, and he’s not about to ring some sort of tinkly bell so someone can bow and scrape their way here to the kitchen and back. Linus already works himself twice as hard as he should without playing maid. 

Okay, so these were the import taxes Claude had suggested…

The day passes like a dying slug doing the slow waltz across salt. At some point, Ms. Adelaide comes to deliver some more of last night’s stew and check up on Felix. She mops his brow and is more successful than Sylvain at trickling water between his lips. Felix, for his part, gets more and more restless throughout the day, to the point Ms. Adelaide is sure he’ll be awake by nightfall. Sylvain smiles to himself. Felix would probably consider his time asleep to be time wasted, time he could have been swinging a sword around or whatever he did for fun these days. Keeping him in the infirmary at Garrech Mach had always been impossible. The only person who’d ever successfully kept him in bed was the Professor with her simple stare that somehow _menaced_ so much more effectively than anything else. Also, Felix had a genuine respect for Byleth that translated to a fifty percent obedience rate. 

Saints, Sylvain thinks faintly, I’m supposed to make him ‘take it slow’ for two whole weeks. He’s more likely to steal a horse and go riding off in the first few hours he’s awake. (He’s probably still awful at riding but the possibility is there.) Byleth is too busy having private chats with the Goddess or whatever it is she does to come and give some of her helpful stares, and Sylvain knows he has no power here. Maybe he could ask Dedue and Dimitri to come and sit on either side of the bed and trap Felix beneath the covers with their combined weight. _Please, Your Majesty_ , _come help me keep him, even if it’s just two weeks._

“Ms. Adelaide?” he calls as she exits the room. When her head pokes back in, Sylvain sends her what he hopes is a winning smile. “If he’s going to waking up, any chance we could get some meat for supper?” 

“It’s bear tonight,” she replies cheerily, and continues on her way. He waits until she’s out of hearing range to groan. Sylvain hates bear. But he might be able to bribe Felix into staying around for some quality food. That’s the best plan he has right now.

Linus brings Sylvain some tea and cake later in the day, and Sylvain stands at one of the grand windows and watches as the first few snowflakes flutter down from the clouds. Yep, he’d called it. Winter is here. He hopes Leonie has gotten her band of mercenaries down into warmer Fraldarius lands. Once the snow has stopped, he’ll see about organizing wagons to cart away those supplies to the villages he’d promised, though they’ve all endured these winters long enough to survive a week without Sylvain swooping in to save the day, making it sort of unnecessary. Sometimes, on the really lonely nights, Sylvain knows part of him does this because his father never did. 

He jots a few quick letters to be delivered to Fhirdiad once the weather settles, just so he won’t forget to do it later, and seals each one with the rings he’s been left behind. There. Now he can drag his chair away from the table so he sits next to the bed, staring at the snow beginning to accumulate outside. It builds up on the windowsills and coats the glass panes in delicate patterns that are in stark contrast to the darkening sky. Sylvain frowns a little and rubs his hands together before going to the fireplace—set directly against the one in his own room so they could share one flue—and building a small pile of twigs and smaller logs from the nearby basket. Out of curiosity more than anything, he tries calling on the same power that he’d used to heal Felix, except this time he teases out the fire from his fingertips. He’s let himself get so rusty over the years, especially with magic. It had always seemed like such an over-the-top way of dealing with things that a piece of flint or bandage could handle, but now the fire crackles from his hand and makes its home in the grate. Sylvain grins and begins placing logs in the fireplace, careful and deliberate like his father had taught him. A house for where the fire lives. He tents logs together to build a happy little house for his fire and then drags his chair around to the other side of the bed so he can get closer to the heat. He slumps in the chair and settles with his feet close to the fire where he can watch Felix and the snow easily. That’s the ticket. He tents his hands on his stomach and focuses on the way the fire warms his toes. 

That’s how Ms. Adelaide finds him when she comes up with dinner. Sylvain groans a little as he struggles to sit back up in the chair without flopping onto the floor but manages somehow so he can accept the plate stacked with bear meat (gross) and potatoes and carrots. Ms. Adelaide puts a plate of very thinly sliced bear meat on the bedside table, along with a tray of tea. The tea cozy is made with huge stitches in blue thread because that had been Sylvain’s favorite color when he made it for his mother. Naturally, it’s Ms. Adelaide’s favorite cozy to use.

“This tea was made with herbs from the healer,” she explains as she sets down a single empty teacup. “Whenever he wakes up, have him drink at least two cups, alright?”

“Alright-y,” Sylvain says, picking through hunks of bear meat with his fork. Ms. Adelaide feeds Felix another ladle of water and leaves with a smile. Sylvain waves goodbye and wonders how much bear meat he could successfully dispose of in the fire. He chews on some of the cooked carrots while he ponders. 

The next glance over his shoulder reveals a nighttime glistening with snow and it’s still coming down hard. It might be a while before any of his letters actually get delivered. Sylvain sets his plate down on the floor and stands by the fire, inhaling deeply and enjoying the warmth on his hands and face. The wood snaps and crackles and the scent of pine and smoke wraps around him like a blanket. No matter how much he’s complained about it to himself and anyone who would listen, there is a part of Sylvain that dearly loves this mansion tucked up against the mountains. 

“Nngh,” someone groans from the bed, and Sylvain spins around so fast he nearly topples into the fire. Felix is fighting to sit up beneath all the blankets atop and around him. His cheeks are flushed and he just blinks in confusion when Sylvain appears at his side, hand at his back to keep him propped up while Sylvain frantically rearranges pillows. He lowers Felix against the headboard and sits beside him, fussing with the blankets. 

“No,” Felix mumbles, and kicks at the blankets. “Hot.” And then he frowns and reaches down towards the wound. “Hurts.” 

Well, no one had ever accused him of being a fantastic conversationalist.

Sylvain catches his hand before it can mess up the bandages and holds it tight. “Felix?” 

“Mmm?” Felix stares at him with dull eyes, and then he tilts his head to one side, completely baffled. “S-Sylvain?” 

“So they tell me.”

“Sylvain.” Those feverish eyes drift away, but at least he’d recognized Sylvain. That was a good sign, right? “Hungry,” Felix adds after a moment. 

Sylvain grins as he squeezes Felix’s hand, safe in his own. “Just a second. There’s some tea I need you to drink first.” 

Felix grumbles to himself as Sylvain pours the cup of herbal tea and then makes a face the moment he tastes it. “Eugh.”

He might not know exactly how he feels about having Felix back now, but seeing him so helpless has Sylvain swallowing those complicated feelings back down for a simple and fond exasperation. “Don’t be a baby,” he teases, and makes a note he will definitely have to make fun of this later when Felix can properly hate him for it. Felix seems to take the words to heart, though, because he downs the rest of the tea in one gulp. Sylvain sits at the edge of the bed once more, reaching out and snagging the empty cup. “Are you still hungry?” 

“Mmm.” Affirmative. 

“Here. Chew slow.” Sylvain selects a small piece of bear meat from the plate on the side table and presses it into a waiting palm. They probably should have started with something lighter, but if Sylvain had offered crackers he thinks he might have been clocked across the face. 

Felix takes a small bite of meat, smiles to himself a little and then immediately winces when he shifts against the blankets and the bandages strain against his stomach. 

“Careful.” Sylvain gets up to steady him and make the pillows more secure. Felix scowls as Sylvain pulls the blankets back over him, and then looks to him in bewilderment. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Well, it’s my house.” Sylvain passes him another strip of meat. “Be strange if I wasn’t here.” 

Felix blinks, and then stares around the room as he gnaws at the food. He pauses and then looks down at the bandages. “Oh,” he says at last. Sylvain snorts. 

“Just eat. And then have some more tea. You’re supposed to have two cups.” 

Felix is uncharacteristically quiet as he eats, if that’s even more possible. But it’s been eight years so how is Sylvain supposed to know what his habits are now? His eyes are sleepy as he gently sips at the second cup of tea, not even bothering to complain, and then he shuffles back into the pillows and shoves the blankets off once more. “Hot!” he says again with more emphasis, and then shuts his eyes and goes to sleep, just like that. Sylvain considers putting the fire out if the heat is such a problem, but he opts for washing Felix’s face with a cloth once more and moving with gentle motions down onto his chest and along each arm. It might not take the fever away, but it will clean away the sweat. The only piece of clothing Felix has on are a pair of loose cotton leggings, what was left when the furs and leathers were stripped away. Sylvain shoves the pant legs up to Felix’s knees and cleans down to each foot, which he expects a _tip_ for later, thanks. The moment he gets the okay, he’s going to drag Felix into the bathtub himself. 

Sylvain finishes his carrots and potatoes and even chokes down some bear meat before tossing it in the fire. He just doesn’t get the appeal of eating something so tough to chew. Maybe that’s why Felix likes it. Food that actively fights being eaten, yeah, he’d like that. 

He falls asleep in the chair by the fire without really realizing it, thinking to himself he’ll just let his eyes close for a moment and then he’ll return to his work. Instead, he wakes in the dead of night, blanket slithering down his front. There are no lamps and the fire is only embers. Snow has painted the windows practically all the way to the top, so only a hint of moonlight is allowed through. The shadows of slowly drifting snowflakes move lazily across the bed. 

Felix has curled onto one side, pillowing his head on his arm. It’s stretching at his bandages. With a sigh, Sylvain gets up, wraps the blanket Ms. Adelaide must have placed over him around his shoulders, and tilts Felix’s knees back upright so the rest of him is forced to follow. He’s wearing that stubborn and scrunched expression but goes easily enough, arms now sprawled across the pillows. Sylvain can’t help but smile softly at how vulnerable he looks in that moment and then feels at his forehead. Still feverish. The blankets get heaped back on top of him. Felix can complain when he wakes up. 

Sylvain sits at the edge of the bed and stares at Felix’s face, every single piece of it he remembers so intimately. It’s all familiar—achingly familiar—but he feels so far away at the same time. Like he’s watching through glass. He watches so many things through glass these days. 

Felix existed in the life of another Sylvain, the stupid boy with the easy smile who hadn’t realized how fleeting his happiness would be. That Sylvain is gone and Felix isn’t his anymore. Never had been. 

This room seems suddenly unbearably lonely in what he’ll never have. Sylvain staggers through the connecting door and rolls into the blankets of his own bed. It doesn’t make him feel any less heartsick, but at least his feet are warm. 

***

These are some really fucking weird trees. 

Wait. No. 

Felix squints upwards at the vibrant purple fabric obscuring the sky above him. Turns his head to one side. Then another. Pillows. Blankets. What he’d mistaken for leaves is one of those...what’s the word? Canopy. It’s a canopy. He’s in a bed. Why is he in bed? 

He tries to sit up and is made very aware of what must have landed him in this bed. That last bandit had come straight from his blind spot, and then there’d been that awful agony in his stomach, the kind that made you want to throw up or black out completely. Apparently he’d chosen the second option. 

Biting back grunts of pain, he gets himself seated upright. The room is pretty nondescript, besides perhaps ‘large’ and ‘clean’. No portraits or anything that might give it personality. Just a chair by the fire and a table set up on the other side of the bed with a lot of papers on it. There’s a side table with a teapot, tea cup, and a plate with cold bear meat, cut into small strips. He can smell it from here. Felix reaches over and munches on some, brain screaming at him that he’s missing something. Bandits. Bandits in Fraldarius territory. Oh, that had pissed him off. But not as much as having to trail them all the way up into Gautier land, right to the mountains. And he’d been just angry enough by then to chase after a straggler without backup. He did it all the time and things ended up fine. But this time hadn’t been like the others. Felix feels at his bandages. Clean. No blood. Leonie must have gotten him to a healer pretty damn quick. Doesn’t solve the question of where he is, though. What sort of healer lives in a place this fancy? 

Felix frowns harder as he finishes the bear meat. There had been red hair and a soft smile, gentle words urging him to drink and eat. But it’s not like it would be the first time he dreams of red hair and a soft smile. And then it’s Leonie, kicking him awake, and she has red hair and a kind smile but it’s not right, just not right. 

But Leonie isn’t here.

His stomach aches as he swings his legs out of bed. The floor is freezing, but someone stole all his clothes. It snowed too, the white of it almost blinding. Fantastic. Felix settles for tugging several blankets off the bed and bundling himself up. He’ll just have to go find some answers. 

The small doorway to the left is dark, so he heads for the large double doors first and looks both ways down a carpeted hallway. The carpet is red and purple with yellow highlights and is possibly the ugliest floor covering he’s ever seen. His stomach twinges again and it has nothing to do with his injury. He knows these halls, knows the feel of this uniquely ugly carpet beneath his feet. He would have thought that so many years would strip those memories away, but here they are, all the more vivid with how hard he’d tried to bury them. He’d run through these halls, chasing or being chased or some other game altogether. The margrave would scold them for being too loud while he was in the study and send them downstairs to play, and they would beg treats from the cook before going to adventure outside with wooden weapons for brave knights on childish quests. 

They hadn’t been a half hour ride from the Gautier Mansion when they finally caught up with the bandits, twenty minutes with Leonie at the reins. The proximity had been sparks in Felix’s bloodstream the closer and closer they got. Perhaps part of the reason he’d walked right into an ambush, those stupid sparks dulling his senses. Leonie was nothing but practical. What better place to bring some idiot comrade bleeding out on her than to the doorstep of the Margrave Gautier?

Fuck.

Why is it so hard to turn around and face that dark doorway, the one connecting to the room next door? That’s stupid. He knows the answer. Felix wraps the blankets tighter around his shoulders and heads for the darkened doorway anyway. He immediately trips over some random shit someone had left on the floor and curses softly. The curtains are drawn in this room, unlike his own, but while the fabric of the curtains might usually allow in some amount of light, the snow has piled up so high on the window panes that the entire room is cast in shadow. Felix squints at the discarded piles of clothes and shoes and tumbles of paper. Saints. 

There’s a muffled sound from the bed across the room, and someone shifts under the pile of blankets, mumbling in their sleep. Felix’s chest twinges a bit too close to his heart to blame on his injury and it’s almost enough to make him back away. Thieves and muggers, rapists and murderers, those he can handle with a simple twist of his blade. But he doesn’t even know where his swords are and he’d spent too long running from this to know what he should do now. 

He takes another step forward. The blankets around his shoulders drag at the mess on the floor. Felix glances around at the furnishings as he goes. He’s never known this room the way he knows the hallways and the kitchen and the stables. He’d never realized how empty it was. Was that something the previous margrave had left behind? 

Another mumble, a groan, and the figure in the bed flips over, one arm flung across the pillows. Felix sucks in breath and shuts his eyes for a brief moment of calm before opening his eyes once more and leaning forward to pull a quilt carefully away so he can see the face of the person buried in the bed. 

Funny how his hands would fail him now. Felix’s fingers tremble as they find a lock of bright red hair, so soft, and brush it away from Sylvain’s eyes. It wasn’t like he didn’t know it would be him, but the sight of his face after so many years is jarring. For a second, it’s as if it’s eight years ago and they’re sure they’re about to die, but then Sylvain shifts again and turns away, hair flopping back in his face, and the reality is that Felix left and Sylvain stayed and Felix _really_ needs to get out of here right now. 

A quick rummage through the bureau manages to find him a shirt and some boots. The sleeves flop way past his hands and the boots are laughably large, but thieves can’t be choosers. Felix winces every time he hears Sylvain stir, sure he’s about to be caught, but he gets dressed and slips out the door without waking him. He tucks the shirt into his trousers so it doesn’t look so much like a dress and deposits his blankets back on the bed to be at least a little considerate. The hallway is still deserted when he creeps out of his room and he makes a quick exit to the left. If he goes right, he’ll hit the grand staircase and the main hall, but, if memory serves, left should take him to a little servants’ staircase that leads straight down to the kitchens and, more importantly, the stables. He hates horses, loathes them really, but it’s his best shot. Saints, he’s such a shitty person. The pain in his stomach reminds him with every move. Thanks for bandaging me up and all, old friend, but I’m just going to steal a horse and escape while you sleep. Why? Because there’s no way I can face your eyes after all these years. 

I’m not a strong enough person for that. 

Felix keeps a hand wrapped around his middle as he negotiates the stairway. He’d been expecting to run into more people by now. The mansion had been a busier place when he was a child. But no one stops him. No one recognizes him. No one is around to even see him leave.

There’s a healthy fire going in the grate in the kitchen. Felix grips the stone wall and takes a moment to rest. His legs are unsteady beneath him and his vision isn’t exactly stellar. Well, he got his guts spilled out, so there’s bound to be a few side effects. The fire means that someone is around though, so he’s extra stealthy slipping around the sides of the room to the simple wooden door that leads to the stables. Easy escape.

Or at least, it should have been. Felix has his hand on the door handle out to the stables when there’s the scrape of chair legs on stone. He whirls around, instantly regrets it, holds a hand against the sharp pain in his stomach, and uses the door handle to keep himself upright as he sizes up the threat, hidden right by the warmth of the fire. 

“Twenty years later and I’m still catching you slipping out,” the woman says, and smiles at him as she crosses one leg over the other in her chair, knitting needles absentmindedly industrious in her hands. “Though usually you’d all steal food first.” 

Felix stares. He should know her. He should. But he also needs to leave. He turns the door handle and tries to escape, but the door won’t budge. Felix swears wickedly to himself and throws his weight against the door, which just _hurts_. 

“Felix!” the woman snaps, and sets her needlework aside to rush across the kitchen floor. She grabs him as the pain in his stomach makes his knees give out, and then at least they both sink to the floor slowly instead of him collapsing altogether. She rucks the shirt out of his trousers and checks the bandages, giving a sigh of relief when there’s apparently nothing wrong.

“Why are you locking me in here?” Felix gasps out and she gives him an exasperated expression before settling him more firmly against the cool stone wall and backing away with one last look shot his way that pins him in place. 

“Stay there while I make you some tea. And then we’ll get you back to bed.” 

Felix tries to be mature about this and not openly pout, but it’s hard. He casts his gaze away and it falls on the snow slowly melting on the floor beneath the door. Snow, let in by his attempt to escape.

Ah, he’s an idiot. He saw the buildup on the windows. The snow must be man-height outside. He can’t even open this door against it, let alone run off on a horse. He’d barely be above the snow, even on horseback. Some of his earliest memories of snow are of when his father brought him along north for official business. He remembers it as powdery and almost impossible to play with, too cold to stick together and too cold to endure for very long either. 

It was a mistake to follow those bandits so far north. He could have guessed that winter would be upon them soon, and now here he is, the utter fool snowed in at the Gautier Mansion. 

Felix stays still and quiet while water is boiled and the teapot prepped. When the woman returns and kneels down before him, he’s able to look up and meet her eyes. “Ms. Ada?” 

She smiles, and then puts out both arms to help him, waiting until he’s gripping her tight in return before standing back up. It’s embarrassing how much of his weight he needs her to bear, but she doesn’t complain or even mention it. Felix’s hands shake where he’s holding her shoulders, fingers twisting in the straps of her apron. The pain in his stomach doesn’t seem life-threatening, but he’s definitely feeling it more now than he was when he first woke up. “Ms. Ada,” he repeats in a mumble as his head drops to her shoulder. 

“I forgot you always called me that,” she says softly as they maneuver carefully across the kitchen floor. Step by step. Felix’s feet are made clumsy by the stolen boots far too big. “You could never say ‘Adelaide’ quite right.” 

No, he never could. And it was so frustrating when Dimitri and Ingrid could say it just fine while Felix’s tongue would get stuck on the ‘ela-ela-ela’ part. And now he is still using that childish nickname. “Sorry,” he tells her, for lack of anything else to say. 

“I like hearing it again, actually.” He can hear the smile still in her voice, even if he can’t see it. “It brings back such good memories.”

If it was Leonie or any of the crew helping him hobble around like a weak little kitten, he’d probably just let himself die of humiliation. But Ms. Ada had been a constant in his childhood whenever he visited the Gautier Mansion so he can’t decide how he feels about this yet. It doesn’t feel as embarrassing needing her help settling into a chair by the fire considering she’d seen him crying his eyes out on numerous occasions over things as stupid as broken training swords to that time he’d snapped his arm falling off a horse. (His hatred for those stupid animals is perfectly justified.) Ms. Ada and Sylvain had stuck by his side the whole time the healer was mending the arm, keeping his eyes off the way the bone jutted through his skin and making sure he was distracted with ginger cookies and stupid jokes. 

Felix’s childhood had been much better than Sylvain’s. He knows that. Sylvain had a brother out to kill him and Felix’s father, with two Crest-bearing sons, had never placed the sort of pressure Sylvain bore every single day. And Sylvain was frightened by his father in a way young Felix had never really understood, until suddenly he did. But Felix remembers being wildly jealous of Sylvain for Ms. Ada. Especially right after Glenn died, in those weeks he did nothing but cry. Especially once the rebellion in the west was suppressed, and Felix was the only one who’d witnessed for himself what Dimitri was and needed someone who would listen more than anything else in the world. But he hadn’t ever seen her again, not until now, no matter how much he’d wished for ginger cookies, alone in the Fraldarius Castle or curled in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar friend turned beast asleep in the prince’s chambers. 

He’d been fifteen and confused and lonely and angry and wildly jealous of Sylvain for having someone who could be an extra mother when Felix had none. He can’t believe he’d managed to forget Ms. Ada’s face. 

Felix blinks and realizes he’s fully seated in the chair, his hands still clutching Ms. Ada’s apron straps for dear life. He feels heat rush to his ears and lets go immediately. “Sorry,” he says again as she straightens up. Her hand, calloused by work, pats his cheek in a way unbecoming a seasoned mercenary. 

“Nothing to be sorry for. But drink your tea.” 

He nods and watches as she pours the tea into a chipped blue cup. It’s green and looks medicinal. Had Sylvain given him tea? He can’t remember. But there’d been a teapot on the bedside table, right?

“How long have I been here?” he asks as he accepts the cup and sniffs at the tea. Well, it doesn’t seem poisonous. He takes a sip and nods. Certainly mossy-tasting, but not sweet. He's had worse medicines. “What...what happened? Did Leonie bring me here?” 

Ms. Ada hums and then asks, “Are you hungry?” Which doesn’t answer any of his questions at all but it does bring his attention to the fact that yeah, he could eat. 

“Does it have to be nourishing soup?” he asks suspiciously, and Ms. Ada laughs as she shakes her head. 

“We have bear meat left over from last night. How about a sandwich? I’m not going to worry about a sandwich harming your stitches.” 

Felix nods vigorously. “Please.” 

It’s as he sits there drinking the medicinal tea and Ms. Ada slices bread that they hear the thumping. Someone above them, running through the halls. Back and forth, and then a distant thud-thud-thud-thud-thud of someone careening down the main stairs. 

“Ah, he’s awake,” Ms. Ada manages to say faintly just before the footsteps reach the kitchen and the doors burst open with force near enough to break them. Felix spills half the tea down his front and swears at the sudden hot liquid soaking into his bandages. 

“He’s missing!” Sylvain shouts, red in the cheeks and hair mussed all to one side. His chest heaves beneath a white shirt mostly unbuttoned with a slight sheen of sweat and Felix swears again, a little softer and a lot more violently. It’s unfair for Sylvain to look just as good now as he did eight years ago. 

His annoyance at this injustice pushes aside any reasonable inhibitions in favor of just being irritated. Focus, Fraldarius.

“I’m not missing!” he snaps, setting his tea aside. “Moron,” he adds for good measure. He pointedly avoids the way Sylvain’s eyes immediately turn to him in order to wring out his stolen shirt. Yeah. Okay. That’s a good start to the conversation. He’s fairly certain that something potentially friendly happened last night, in those vague memories of someone helping him to eat and drink, but it doesn’t mean he has to be friendly now. 

“Felix!” Sylvain breathes anyway, way too tender for Felix’s comfort, and rushes to his chair, kneeling beside it and staring up and there’s only so much Felix can wring this stupid shirt before he has to acknowledge Sylvain’s presence. 

“Sylvain,” he says at last, with a curt nod. Sylvain tilts his head to the side and frowns. 

“You spilled your tea? 

_You_ spilled my tea, dumbass. It’s what he could say. Felix just sighs. “What does it look like?” 

Sylvain’s hands dart out, and then stop abruptly in midair. He glances up at Felix, biting at his lip. Did his ridiculous doe eyes manage to get even bigger these past few years? Either way, Felix finds himself looking away again. Ms. Ada has quietly resumed cutting bread, though she’s preparing two plates now. Sylvain does look a little wan, to be honest. Like he’s been sick recently, or is just really, really exhausted. 

Sylvain doesn’t drop his hands, but he doesn’t touch Felix either. 

“Did you heal me?” Felix asks softly. Sylvain had always gotten tired after learning magic at Garreg Mach in a way Felix never had. “Is that why I’m here?” He drops his hands from wringing the shirt and scoots a little bit forward in his chair, silently giving permission. Sylvain’s hands are achingly careful as he lifts the hem of the shirt and brushes fingers down the tea-soaked bandages. Sylvain shakes his head as he goes. 

“No. There’s a healer who lives not far away. I just...stopped the bleeding for a while. And you still have stitches. Which is why you should be in bed instead of running around in my stolen clothes, but I guessed the first thing you’d do would be to try to leave.” There’s no condemnation in his tone. Just simple resignation, and that’s worse. Felix hisses as Sylvain’s fingers find what must be a line of stitches. “Let’s change your bandages, okay? Except not in the kitchen. Come on.” Sylvain stands, ruffles his hair as he looks around distractedly, and then offers both hands. “I can carry you. Maybe.” 

“Like hell.” Felix pushes up from the chair, grimaces at the pain, and grabs one of Sylvain’s arms tight like a railing to guide himself along. Sylvain actually smiles at that, a small and painful smile, nothing like the one Felix remembers, nothing like the one he sees in his dreams. 

“Ms. Adelaide, could you bring some food upstairs in a bit?” 

She nods in the midst of her sandwich making, and Sylvain starts helping Felix along. They exit the kitchen into the main hallway and Felix frowns at the lack of lamps. He remembers the Gautier Mansion as a bustling place where four kids were constantly getting underfoot. This is...something else. But Sylvain doesn’t act like anything is out of place as they move along the hall. 

“You stopped the bleeding?” Felix asks at last, because he remembers just how much blood had been soaking into his clothes. Stopping the bleeding can’t have been as small a deal as Sylvain had made out.

Sylvain shrugs. “Yeah. I stopped the bleeding. And...” He grimaces, like he already knows what Felix’s reaction will be. “You’re supposed to stay. Here. For two weeks.” And then, because he probably guesses this approach might be more effective: “Leonie left with your crew. She said you’d know where to go once you were healed.” 

What does she mean by that? How the hell is he supposed to know where to go? But it’s not like Felix has any choice but to stay until the snow melts a little. He bites back the scathing comment on his tongue and just nods. He can focus his energy on making it to the end of this hall. 

Stairs. Stairs are going to hurt. Felix’s leg gives out from under him with the first step and he thinks he masks it well as just having trouble in the stolen boots, but Sylvain skewers him with a concerned frown. “I really can carry you.” 

“Been keeping up with your training, have you?” Felix all but snarls, and struggles up the next step. It’s not his greatest comeback. Sylvain still looks plenty in shape, except for a bit more bulk around the middle, but the question does make Sylvain pause and then go a little red. Maybe the extra weight is more of a delicate subject than Felix thought. 

The red fades quickly though, and he answers airily, “Well, not as much as you, obviously, and I don’t have much in the way of a sparring partner, but I could probably defend myself against a straw dummy or two.” 

Felix snorts and looks back to Sylvain, smile slipping out despite himself. And Sylvain smiles back, his big goofy smile, a little lopsided with eyes crinkling at the corners. His real smile. 

Saints, could his heart stop with the rapid thumping already? But Felix has missed this smile so much, can’t he have just a moment or two to be stupid? 

“Come here,” Sylvain says, smile fading into something softer, something Felix isn’t sure he’s seen before, or at least not for many years now. He starts to duck low as if to sling one of Felix’s arms around his shoulders, and then sighs. “I forgot how short you are.” And he takes Felix’s elbow instead, other hand landing in the small of his back. His fingers are warm through the stolen shirt. “Okay, let’s try that.” 

It is, admittedly, much easier going up the stairs with Sylvain’s help. “I’m not short.” 

“Mm. That dress looks nice on you.” 

Felix takes another step and looks down at the shirt, hanging down to practically his knees. He splutters. “You’re just stupidly tall!” Sylvain just hums and Felix huffs. “Why are the sleeves all grey anyway? What is this? Ink?” 

Another step. “Um, yeah. That would be ink.” 

“You’re the Margrave Gautier and you can’t afford clean shirts?” Another step. “Or candles, apparently. Or servants. Is it just you and Ms. Ada in this whole place?” 

Sylvain readjusts his grip on Felix’s arm to be steadier. “No!” he protests, and then adds, weaker, “There’s my secretary and the stable boy too. And you, technically.” 

Felix blinks and thinks to his mercenary band of at least twenty men and women. And he’s supposed to be the antisocial one? “Must be a little…” Lonely is the word that belongs there. But Felix has always hated talking about loneliness. “...Quiet. It must be quiet.” 

Sylvain grunts a soft agreement. They take another step. “Sometimes. But it helps me get work done. And it would be stupid to keep a bunch of servants around to take care of one person.” 

Another step. Felix nods and focuses on walking. He’s paid enough attention to know the Margrave Gautier hasn’t taken a wife. There aren’t any children running around with the Gautier Crest weighing on their shoulders. But Sylvain has been talking about that since the war. Letting his Crest die out. Felix hadn’t realized at the time it meant isolating himself completely. 

Another step. And another. And then they’re at the top, and Felix lets out a breath of relief. Sylvain urges him forward with the hand on his back. Pulls Felix closer. “Come on. Not much further.” 

They reach the room without incident, but before Felix can investigate the room properly like he wants, Sylvain forces him to sit on the edge of the bed so Sylvain can strip away the tea-soaked bandages. Felix focuses on the healing wound to ignore the way Sylvain’s breath is hot against the skin of his stomach, how casually he’d leaned in so close, the flop of hair and sweep of his eyelashes. Lidded doe eyes and determined set to his mouth like this is some sort of important mission. Like these stupid wet bandages actually matter. Yes, better to ignore all that and focus on his injury. Felix picks at the stitches and gets his hand slapped. But it’s an impressive cut. “Was it deep?” he asks. 

Sylvain makes a noise that probably means yes. 

The skin along one side of the wound is a bit bunched and already showing white scar tissue. A few other spots too. Just a little bit, but it’s in sharp contrast to the rest of the healing job, which is flawless aside from the stitches. Felix’s fingers linger on one of the scars. Sylvain winces. “Sorry. That was me.”

Felix nods and holds one end of a clean length of bandage so Sylvain can begin wrapping him up again. He glances to the snow-crusted windows. The nearest village had been a while away, maybe forty minutes? And Felix hadn’t heard of any healer near there the few times he’d ventured this far north in the past few years. Sylvain, he decides, is lying about just stopping the bleeding. Or at least stretching the truth as far as it will go. Acting the part. 

Some things never change. 

Fuck. Felix hisses at a sharp tug at his stitches. “Shit, sorry, I’m sorry!” Sylvain drops the bandages and backs away from the bed, hands held up with palms out. 

Felix rolls his eyes. He’s not going to bite. “It’s fine. Just be more careful, idiot. I can’t do this right by myself.” And maybe his pawing at the wound hadn’t made things easy. He glances away to the windows and focuses on counting the panes of glass while Sylvain finishes wrapping the bandages and ties off the end. But then suddenly there are hands on his shoulders, trying to push him further onto the bed. Felix shoves a knee out and catches Sylvain in the chest. “Hey!” 

Sylvain grips his chest, looking scandalized. “Hey yourself! What was that for?” 

“I’m not going to bed!” 

“Yes you are!”

“Am not!” 

“Yes you are! You’re still supposed to be in bed, and you have a fever! And you can’t even go up the stairs by yourself!” Sylvain crosses his arms and, standing so close with Felix seated on the bed, his height is suddenly a little more imposing than Felix remembered. His expression softens. “Felix, you nearly died. Can’t you just...damn it…” Sylvain turns away, combing fingers through his hair absentmindedly. 

Felix breathes in deep, and then pulls his legs onto the bed. If only so it will stop Sylvain from being so stressed. Because here’s the thing: healing doesn’t work on scars. Not really. White magic exists to help things that are broken become whole again. If the skin has already healed and scarred, then white magic won’t have much of an effect. Sylvain didn’t just stop the bleeding for a little while. He healed the wound well enough for pieces of it to scar, and then this other healer came along and finished the job. 

Sylvain saved his life. Again. And he’s not even taking credit for it. 

Sylvain’s smile when he sees Felix is cooperating is worth obeying some stupid orders anyway. “Here! Let me fix the pillows so you can sit up!” He busies himself rearranging pillows and tucking blankets. “Ms. Adelaide should be up soon with some food. Since I don’t have to help _her_ up the stai—hah! You missed!” He’d ducked Felix’s fist. “But she should be here soon.” He grins lopsidedly as Felix settles into the little nest he’s created. “I forgot you couldn’t say her name right.”

“I can say it fine now!” Felix replies hotly, but he feels any threatening manner he might have held is diminished by light blue blankets with embroidered flowers and the fact his sleeves flop well past his hands. “Where the hell are my clothes? My swords?” 

“Leonie took your swords. Your clothes?” Sylvain shrugs. “Knowing Linus? Burned, probably.”

“ _What?_ ” 

“I’ll find you something to wear, don’t worry.” Sylvain circles the bed and walks to the little table piled with papers. He sits and pulls a thick sheaf of papers before him. “So you can eat, and then sleep a little, alright? I’ll be here.” 

It feels like the sort of dismissal his father used to give him. Felix shuts his mouth out of pure habit. And true enough, it’s just a moment before Ms. Ada (Ms. Adelaide, he supposes, but she was Ms. Ada for too long to be able to think of her as anything else.) brings up sandwiches and another cup of that medicinal tea. She stays by Felix’s side while he eats, which is awkward, and then goes to fetch a cool cloth to lay on his forehead. Felix huffs and slithers into a more horizontal position while she’s gone and catches Sylvain smiling as his pen scritches away at the papers. Ms. Ada returns with a bowl of cool water and a soft cloth she dips and wrings and sets carefully on Felix’s forehead. “Alright, you rest up. I mean it. Sleep.” 

Felix force stops his eyes from rolling and nods instead. She smiles softly at him and closes the canopy around the bed so he’s lying in shadow. And then there’s just him and Sylvain once again, shapes gauzy through the canopy. 

“I want my clothes,” Felix calls out after a peaceful moment. “You owe me, Margrave.” 

“Hush, hush,” Sylvain chastises from the table. “The healer said you’d be irritable when you woke up.” 

“Fuck you.” Felix pulls the blankets up higher as Sylvain chuckles, a warm and scratchy sound that Felix doesn’t remember from before. It’s a new thing about Sylvain, a thing that he doesn’t know, and it makes him even more irritable for some reason. “What are you even doing over there?” 

“Hmm?” He can’t actually see Sylvain’s face at this distance, but he can imagine the curious blink and raised brow. “This stuff? Um, there’s a lot of stuff to do with taxes. Dimitri needs me to go over all of Claude’s proposals and make sure all of the territories along the coast can afford the Almyran import tax, since so much of the old Alliance is still independent. We’ve officially established trade though, which is good. Obviously. But you know Claude. Have to double check everything to make sure he’s not pulling one over on us. And...um…” Saints, Sylvain suddenly sounds exhausted talking about this stuff, or is it just that boring that Felix is projecting? “I always try to send supplies to the towns during winter. There’s a surplus stored up here at the mansion and we get shipments from House Bergliez. So I need to figure out how to prioritize which towns I get supplies to first and which routes will be safest for delivery. Can’t do anything until the snow melts a little, obviously. So until then, I need to look at the numbers for potato crops in the western provinces. They were low last year and if they keep declining at that rate we’ll need to repurpose some corn fields so I need to get some maps out and…” He stops. “Felix? You awake?” 

Felix fists his hand in the sheets. “Is that what being the Margrave Gautier is? Numbers and maps and damned diplomacy?” 

A pause. 

“Yes,” Sylvain says at last. “This is what you’re missing out on.” 

He can’t think of anything to say in return, so he goes quiet, hoping Sylvain will think he’s asleep. Eventually the scritch scritch of the pen makes his eyelids droop, and he’s asleep in an instant before realizing it’s coming.

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of a courtyard filled with students who won’t shut up and he hates it. It’s loud and crowded and Felix just wants to lose himself in the motion of a sword. He hates his uniform. He shucks off the jacket and folds it over one arm. He doubts he’ll get yelled at for it. Some students are being quite creative with their own uniforms. The pink haired girl is being quite creative with how short she can make the damn thing. 

He can feel eyes on him, but the eyes fall away whenever he turns to glare at whoever is staring. He’s not here to be gossipped over. He doesn’t want to be here at all but his father had insisted. Both his ‘sons’, attending his own alma mater, together. 

Felix does take that chance to level a special glare Dimitri’s way. Dimitri certainly gets a special uniform, doesn’t he? He’s all smiles and handshakes and demure kisses to the hand, the very picture of a prince. Felix wonders if he describes how Dimitri had laughed wretchedly when he’d skewered that rebel on his spear if the girls would still fawn over him so. He wonders if the Duscur boy following Dimitri around like a dog on a leash would still adore his beloved Highness so much. 

Probably. No one could ever overlay that image of the beast over the Dimitri that’s out today. And so, once again, no one will listen to Felix when he tries to tell them what he saw. None of them will know how close Dimitri is to snapping. Felix is the only one prepared. 

Saints, that’s Ingrid. Felix hasn’t seen her in years, but that thatch of golden hair is the same. Felix ducks behind a pillar so she can’t see him as she says hello to Dimitri and...oh hell…

“Hey Dimitri!” When Felix glances around the pillar, Sylvain has thrown an arm around Dimitri’s shoulders, making him laugh and totally dishevelling that stupid blue cape. Felix swallows hard, seeing the three of them together. Felix hasn’t even glimpsed Sylvain since a few weeks before Duscur. They’d spared. Felix had won. And then they’d gone and found one of the mountain lakes in the Gautier territory and swum the afternoon away. They’d promised to do it again when the summer heat really picked up. Except then the king was dead and so was Glenn and Felix’s father couldn’t even be bothered to stay at home, because now Dimitri was the one who needed him. And sure, whatever, of course Dimitri needed someone, he’s not mad at Dimitri for that, but didn’t Felix’s old man ever consider that maybe his other actual son—the one still alive and crying every tear he’d ever have over Glenn—might need him too, just a little?

Apparently not. 

And of course Glenn never came back either, no matter how many mornings Felix woke up praying that this had all just been a nightmare. 

His father? Gone. Glenn? Dead. Who did he have left who could come and make him feel something other than this...wretched emptiness? Sylvain. Of course it would be Sylvain.

But Sylvain never came. Because Miklan ran off to be a fucking bandit and that was the only excuse the Margrave Gautier needed to start carving the perfect heir out of his remaining son, and that heir was no longer permitted to run wild with the Fraldarius boy. There was nothing to be gained from that. Felix understood, even then, how the Margrave Gautier’s mind worked. Had done so from the moment he saw the man’s expression when Sylvain was saved from the snow. Even if Sylvain wanted to see him—and there was no way that wasn’t true, Felix _knew_ that—he also knew Sylvain feared his own father in a way Felix was starting to understand. 

Sylvain wouldn’t be coming. But Felix couldn’t be angry at him for it. In the years after Duscur, they all did what they could to survive.

So for two years, with his father treating Dimitri as more of a son than Felix himself—Felix still can’t blame Dimitri for that, no matter how people think he does—and Glenn just a cruel memory of a spar he would never win, Felix threw himself into the one thing that allowed him to shed his emotions. He trained. He trained for hours a day, trained in the mornings when he realized this wasn’t just a nightmare, trained in the nights to prevent the nightmares altogether, sparred with every member of the Fraldarius guard until, after fourteen moons, he was able to defeat all of them in ten moves or less. With the sword in his hand, he couldn’t feel lonely, or empty, or betrayed. He was the second son, meant to be a warrior, and now he was. He was born to be a weapon, and he was damn good at it.

If his father could be a shield, then Felix could be a sword. So Felix honed himself into the sharpest sword he could be, and that was all he needed. Because the moment he wasn’t a sword, he wasn’t quite sure how to exist anymore. 

Except now, in the Garreg Mach courtyard, such a huge piece of him wants to run to Sylvain, let the years melt away, and let Sylvain fix things. Maybe not everything, but some things. Apologize for not being there. Believe Felix when he says there’s something in Dimitri no one else will see. Maybe let him not be a sword, for just a moment or two, because sometimes being a weapon is so damn heavy. Maybe Sylvain can do that. Because Sylvain fixes things. But when Felix looks, it isn’t the Sylvain he knows that he sees. 

Wide smile, hair in wavy locks that he sweeps his hand through now and again, an eye that seems addicted to winking at every girl who passes by. Who the hell is that? It’s Sylvain’s mouth doing the smiling, his fire of red hair, yes, and those are his eyes for certain, but whoever the Margrave Gautier carved out of his son, it isn’t Felix’s Sylvain. This is...this is…

This is clockwork. This fake boy, obvious when seen from a distance. Wink, smile, hand ruffles hair. Smile, hand ruffles hair, wink, wink. Three actions this fake boy seems to know how to do, and not a single one is genuine. That stupid wink in particular makes Felix’s stomach feel scooped out. That’s four girls in thirty seconds he’s passively flirted with. Just...just…

What the fuck happened? 

“Felix!” a familiar voice calls, just like this is a summer lake or a blanket fort, but Felix sidesteps the attempted hug with ease. 

“Like hell,” he spits towards Fake Sylvain, and stomps off. Screw orientation. He just needs to find the training grounds. 

And quickly. He is a weapon, nothing more, but even swords can shatter under pressure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Felix still feels pretty fucking irritable when Sylvain shakes him awake for dinner. Didn’t sleep well. But Sylvain looks exhausted and actually sits up on the bed with him, cross-legged with his plate in front of him. He has tea too, though his isn’t the green medicinal kind. Felix tries to come up with something to talk about, but Sylvain is obviously still caught up in his work. He keeps mumbling to himself and yawning. This amount of paperwork seems a little excessive for one man. Felix doesn’t ever remember this being one of his father’s duties as duke. He’s pretty sure if he could just pull Sylvain over onto the pillows the Margrave Gautier would fall asleep right then and there, but he doesn’t. He kicks at Sylvain instead until the other wakes up a little and then tells him to go sleep in his own bed. Sylvain nods and obeys and drags himself to the doorway connecting their rooms. “If you need anything, just call,” he says, and disappears into the darkness of his own bedroom. 

Felix scoffs. If he needs anything, he’ll damn well get it himself. 

He’s fully awake now. And bored. It isn’t five minutes since Sylvain left before Felix is slipping out of bed to go look through those papers that had captured Sylvain’s attention for so much of the day. Tax numbers, tax numbers, tax numbers. Various proposals to open trade routes with Sreng. Letters from Bergliez on the shipment of grain. More numbers. Drafts of a speech Dimitri is set to give in a couple of moons. Reports on harvests and graphs tracking the various successes and failures of each crop over the past few years. So boring. 

But oh? What’s this? A sealed letter. Fancy looking. Real wax as the seal, and is that the Gerth seal pressed into the wax? What does the Duke of Gerth want with Sylvain? Felix tears the envelope open. Sylvain should know Felix would go through his stuff if he leaves it out like this so no use in subtlety. Gerth is a dying family, even without Fódlan cycling around to a system that will see all the noble houses dead in a few decades.The Galatea house already died in order to let Ingrid thrive. Hresvelg gone, for obvious reasons. Gaspard, Arundel, Vestra, Hrym, Hevring, Edmund, all dissipated. The Fraldarius Crest will never be passed on. Annette never seemed in a hurry to get married, so there goes the Dominic name. Noble lands that have or will be all transferred to the Commonwealth of Faerghus, ready to undergo the transformation into a democratic province. Felix has seen it himself, travelling everywhere as a sell sword. The power of Crests is at an end. Fódlan has changed and there’s no going back now. Of course, some of the nobility have kept their status for the time being, if only to maintain order. Sudden and complete dissolution of the nobility probably wouldn’t have ended well. So there’s Aegir. Bergliez. Gloucester. Goneril. Gautier. Dimitri still controls a large swath of land, but maybe it’s different with him. But the current system is enough to keep crops tended and international negotiations successful while still creating a whole new sort of country that will slowly see its change completed. One that will take a generation or three to get accustomed to, but then Felix hopes people will see. See what the brand new world that cost them a war to win can really be like.

Congratulations, Boar King. You’re actually doing it. 

Felix takes the letter from Gerth from the envelope and tries to read by the dim lamps that are running out of oil, but the handwriting is small and cramped. Sylvain had left some candles on the desk though, and Felix goes and lights one by the embers of the fire. He sits there by the hearth and reads through the letter. 

It’s a marriage proposal. The Duke of Gerth, actually wanting to set up a marriage between his second daughter and the Margrave Gautier? Absurd. Laughable. Pathetic. 

Just a dying house trying to produce a child with a Crest while that still has any value left. It’s an insult is what it is. 

...would Sylvain actually miss this if it was gone? 

Felix lights the letter on fire with the candle and tosses the remains in the fireplace to watch smolder. There. A little less work for Sylvain to worry about. Maybe Felix wouldn’t be so bad at this noble thing as he thought. Just burn everything he doesn’t want to deal with. 

“Felix?” 

Felix nearly jumps out of skin at the appearance of Sylvain in the doorway, yawning and tousle haired. He blows the candle out and lets it roll away across the floor.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Sylvain rubs at his face and then reaches down to pluck at the collar of Felix’s shirt. “Come on.”

Felix could stay seated and fight this, but he feels a little bad about burning Sylvain’s things and he also doesn’t feel like pushing his stitches to the limit, so he goes. “You can’t just put me to bed,” he grumbles. 

Sylvain yawns again as he steers Felix right back towards the bed. “True. I’m putting us both to bed. If that’s what it takes to make you stay put.” 

“What are you—?” But Felix allows Sylvain to guide him back to the nest of pillows and cover him all up with quilts and blankets. And then he clambers over Felix to the other side of the bed, snaring one of the quilts as he goes. 

“This one can be mine.” And he yawns again, so hard Felix is worried he might break his jaw. Sylvain scoots a little closer until he can rest his head on one of Felix’s pillows, bundles himself in the quilt, and then, as if this whole ordeal isn’t humiliating enough, he tosses an arm around Felix’s chest. “No more wandering. You’ll heal faster if you actually listen to anything I say.” His arm tightens around Felix to the point Felix knows there’ll be no more wandering tonight. “It’s okay to listen to other people now and again.” Sylvain curls his legs up so his feet no longer stick out the edge of his quilt, rubs his face into the pillow, and is asleep within a minute. 

Well, now Felix is even more awake than ever, thanks to Sylvain. He lies there, feeling Sylvain’s arm like a brand across his chest. He plucks at Sylvain’s sleeve a little. Sylvain hadn’t bothered to change out of his inky shirt, and he doesn’t respond to Felix walking gentle fingers up and down his arm. He doesn’t respond to Felix playing with his hair either, pulling on the deep red waves and watching them bounce back into place. Felix feels the stubble along Sylvain’s jaw and runs a finger down the straight path of his nose. He touches a very soft finger to Sylvain’s lips and then goes on to explore his eyebrows, the fan of his lashes. He plays with the collar of Sylvain’s shirt and feels along his shoulders, where the muscles used to be more prominent but haven’t disappeared completely. Felix likes the softness of it. Sylvain grumbles in his sleep and frowns, an anxious little frown, and Felix strokes his face from temple to jaw, temple to jaw, temple to jaw, until Sylvain settles back down again. Bad dreams? Or just residual stress from all that shit he was studying? Felix sighs and just keeps stroking Sylvain’s face. He can remember Sylvain doing the exact same to him, when they’d been _really_ little and Felix had been _really_ upset. He’d go running to Sylvain and Sylvain would hold him tight and stroke his face and promise to protect him, no matter what. It was the sort of comfort he’d wanted from Glenn, but Glenn was gone at that point, off to the capital to protect the royal family. Felix was so proud to be Glenn’s younger brother, but that didn’t stop him from needing someone to tell him everything would be alright. 

He lies there awake until the sun peeps through the snow-crusted windows, but snatches his hands back to himself when he hears someone coming. He can watch the doorway pretty easily through a gap in the canopy, and spies on the slight little man who bustles into the room and goes to organize the paperwork on the desk. He has a nervous disposition and hums very softly to himself as he straightens and stacks, and only then does he turn his attention to the bed. He tilts his head to the side because the canopy isn’t thick and it’s impossible to miss the extra person lying in the bed. 

This must be Linus, Felix decides. The one who burned his clothes. He settles his face into a scowl and sits up a little more against the pillows. Let it be known to the world that Sylvain Jose Gautier was bothering a wounded man all night. 

It sure makes the secretary jump so high he nearly hits the ceiling when he pulls back the canopy only to be fixed with Felix’s best death glare. “A-ah,” he stammers, “I see the Duke is awake…” 

Felix raises a brow. “The who now?” 

Linus bobs his head a couple of times. “The...the Duke Fraldarius! I meant no disrespect!” 

Felix purses his lips for a moment and then says, very soft, very reasonable, “Call me a duke again and I will cut your tongue out. Now get your stupid lord off of me. I can’t breathe.” 

“A-a-a-a-ah yes, Your...Your Lord…”

“Call me Your Lordship or Your Grace or any of that crap and you go out the window,” Felix promises. “It’s Felix, got it? I’m just a mercenary.” 

The little man looks like he might faint. He won’t be much help dragging Sylvain off to bed. Felix groans and thumps back against the pillows. 

“Fine. Don’t worry about your lord. Let him sleep. Tie the canopy back. Just...get me something to eat.” He’s being a real jerk. “Please,” he adds, like that will fix everything. But Linus seems happy given some sort of order and scurries from the room. It isn’t long before he returns with some porridge and more gross tea.

Felix accepts the cup of tea with a begrudging thanks. “What are the chances of me getting out of this stupid bed today?” 

The secretary’s face relaxes with a topic he knows. “Ms. Adelaide wants to check your stitches, in case you did any damage moving around yesterday, but you should be able to get out of bed by tomorrow, Your Gra—um…”

“Felix.”

“Felix,” Linus repeats, almost in a whisper, like the Gods of Nobility from above will come strike him down at any moment for his blasphemy. “You should be able to get out of bed tomorrow for short periods of time. You’re healing very well, I’m told.” He travels to one post of the bed and ties the canopy back there, fussing with the tie until the ends are of equal length. 

Felix nods, watching Linus move to the next post. He deft little fingers are sort of interesting to observe in motion. “Alright. Can you get me something to do then? Do you still have books or did your Margrave toss those out with the servants?” 

“There are books!” Linus declares a little hotly, the second part of the canopy successfully secured. “I will get you some books! We have some wonderful old tales…” He starts for the door with a spring to his step, canopy forgotten in his enthusiasm.

Wonderful old tales, oh boy. “If it’s anything about Loog, I will strangle your Margrave with my bandages!” Felix calls after Linus, who turns around looking absolutely offended. 

“But it’s a classic—” 

“I don’t want to read about Loog, alright?” 

“It’s a classic tale of chivalry!” Linus protests again. Felix narrows his eyes. 

“No. Loog. Got it?”

Which is how he ends up with a dozen books on differential equations in his lap. Well played, Linus, well played. Sylvain starts to stir as Felix hits chapter two of the first book. “Felix?” he mumbles. 

“So I’m told.” Felix had been balancing his bowl of porridge on Sylvain’s shoulder. He rescues it before Sylvain spills all over and holds it up in the air until he can figure out where to place it next. He turns a page with his thumb and scans the text. He remembers a lot of this stuff from his tutor, not that mathematics or literature had ever been his focus in life. He’d liked math more than reading though, that much he remembers, because Sylvain had been the complete opposite. “Hey, you know who your secretary reminds me of?”

“Is it Ashe?” Sylvain asks with a grin. 

“Yes!” Oh, thank the Saints he’s not the only one who sees it. “Look, this is what I got for trash talking Loog!” He waves the book of math equations in Sylvain’s face.

Sylvain nods sagely. “Ah yes. We do not trash talk Loog in the House of Gautier.” He does not seem inclined to stop lounging against Felix’s side. “Is that breakfast?” 

“Ashe jr. only brought one bowl but I’m full.” Felix passes him the bowl of porridge and Sylvain props himself up so he can eat it. “Thanks. I don’t feel like making a trip to the kitchen.” The porridge doesn’t have honey in it or any kind of sweetener, which earns a face, but it’s peaceful, Felix reading about math and Sylvain eating the porridge without comment. “Your paperwork is really boring,” Felix comments at last.

“You went through my paperwork?” Sylvain asks through a mouthful of porridge. 

“Yeah. I was bored. And then I went through your stuff and was even _more_ bored. But also why haven’t trade relations opened with Dagda? Don’t we have good relations with Dagda now?” 

“Mmm.” Sylvain scrapes up the last of his breakfast. “Dimitri decided it was more ‘diplomatic’ to secure things with Brigid first. Seeing as we kidnapped their princess and all. And because no one from Dagda has bothered to come to one of our diplomatic sessions.” 

“Do you need them to? Because for enough money, I bet Leonie and I…” Felix grins at Sylvain’s expression. “I’m joking. Slightly.” 

Sylvain smiles weakly and rolls away to place his bowl on the side table. “Hey Felix?” he asks, while he’s still turned away. “How did...how did it happen with Leonie?” 

“How did what happen with Leonie?” 

A vague hand gesture. “Are you two…?”

Felix turns a page. “Battle partners? Yeah, that happened about two...three years ago? When we ran into each other on the same job, it seemed like a good idea to link up. She actually had a crew at that point, and it was nice, someone having my back. So we sort of stayed together.” 

Sylvain is scowling as he rolls back over and props himself up on his arms so he has the height advantage, staring down at Felix. “I had your back. I always had your back.” 

Felix’s breath catches and he sets the book down on his chest. Sylvain looks genuinely upset and Felix hates to be the cause. He did Sylvain wrong, he knows this. He’s known it every single day since the day he left. “I never said you didn’t. You put your life on the line for me more than anyone.” Sylvain’s expression relaxes a little at that. Felix chews at his lip, sighs, and glances away. “Maybe it was more nice to not be alone. I thought I’d be fine but...I did get lonely, sometimes.” Something clicks. “Wait, did you think Leonie and I were a thing? A romantic thing?” 

When he looks back to Sylvain, he’s pouting just a little. He probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “I wasn’t sure.” 

Oh, sweet, stupid Sylvain. Doesn’t he know? Doesn’t he understand? 

_I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait for you._

He hasn’t broken that promise. 

“We’ve never been a thing.” Felix picks his book back up. “So take that moronic expression off your face. And go shave. Your dumb face was scratching me all night.” 

Sylvain still seems distinctly miffed when he goes to his own bedroom and Felix can hear him bustling around and getting ready for the day. Felix keeps reading about differential equations because he really would rather this than Loog. He isn’t surprised when Ms. Ada shows up in the doorway, holding a bowl of warm water with bandages and miscellaneous items draped all over her arms and shoulders. Sylvain pops out of his room at the sound of her voice. “Alright, let’s check your wound, shall we? Why is only half the canopy tied back?” 

Unimportant. “I think I can get up today,” Felix suggests hopefully, but he removes his shirt, lies down, and pushes the covers aside as she instructs. This time, she has scissors that easily snip through the layers of bandages, removing the need to unwind them slowly, and then Ms. Ada pokes about the wound. Some pokes hurt more than others, but Felix can’t see from this angle what the wound looks like. Sylvain hovers over Ms. Ada’s shoulder, halfway shaved, and his expression tells Felix all he needs to know. He must look pretty much healed. “Go finish shaving,” Felix orders, keeping his voice soft, and Sylvain smiles back at him before disappearing into his bedroom once more. 

Ms. Ada washes the dried sweat from his chest and stomach and presses a poultice to the wound that stings a bit, not that Felix will ever show it. “How are the stitches?” he asks. 

“I’ll take them out in a few days,” she replies, and sets a clean cloth over the poultice. “Hold this.” Felix holds the cloth to his stomach as she guides him up into sitting position and begins wrapping him in bandages again. 

“So when can I get up then?” 

“Tomorrow. But only because I know you won’t be running off to our training grounds or stealing horses.” 

That’s right. The Gautier training grounds are completely outside. Damn it. 

“You can bathe tomorrow,” Ms. Ada tells him primly. “You need it.” 

Felix’s face flushes scarlet. What, does he smell? Leonie had never mentioned it. And he bathed whenever he could, in small lakes or rivers they made camp near. Is it really that bad? Saints, that’s humiliating.

“We’ll get some new clothes for you then,” Ms. Ada says as she begins cleaning up bandages and dishes from the side tables. “I’ll find something that will fit you a little better.” 

Ah yes, he is still wearing Sylvain’s clothes, isn’t he? Another thing to make him turn red. He can’t just steal Sylvain’s clothes like that. Not again. But he doesn’t have much choice but to shrug the stolen shirt back on and push back the inky sleeves. Ms. Ada pats his head as she leaves, which is embarrassing as an adult but also a really nice feeling. Felix gets settled with his books once more, and after a few more moments, Sylvain slinks back from his room, hair dripping water and just combed back, chin spotting a few spots of blood. Felix should have known better than to trust him with a blade. Sylvain was a lance-man, through and through. He dabs at his chin with a handkerchief, wincing with each dab, and comes to sit at the edge of Felix’s bed. 

“Are you doing more boring paperwork today?” Felix asks, and Sylvain shrugs. 

“Probably. Not much else to do.” 

Well, that much is true. Without servants or the old Margrave to piss off, the Gautier Mansion is really boring. The lure of this place had always been the outside attractions, perfect for running around in for hours and hours. Felix remembers playing hide and seek with everyone, how he’d scramble up a pine tree right to the very top, sap on his fingers so satisfyingly sticky, and Dimitri wouldn’t see him at all every single time he passed underneath, growing increasingly frustrated. Felix had been small and Sylvain had the longest reach, lending both of them to unique hiding places that Ingrid and Dimitri hadn’t had access to. It had been a fun little secret between them, their special hiding places. Sylvain would go stand in the very center of one of the mountain ponds and duck his head underneath when he heard someone coming, and if he could spot Felix from there, he would wave whenever he was clear to come back up for air. Felix would grab pinecones and chuck them at the water to try to give Sylvain away when Dimitri or Ingrid were nearby. He’d beamed Sylvain right in the head once and given himself away by laughing so hard. 

Those were good years. 

“You could read about math with me,” Felix suggests. “Or ask Linus for some tales of chivalry.” 

Sylvain snorts. “Yeah, I’ll save it for next time I have tea with Ashe.”

A spot on his chin is still bleeding from where he nicked it. Felix rolls his eyes, licks his thumb, and brushes the blood away. There. Much cleaner. “I’m happy for Ashe and Ingrid.” 

Sylvain just stares at him for a moment until his brain jumpstarts. “Um...yeah! Wait, you...you know what’s happened with them?” 

Maybe he shouldn’t have cleaned the blood away. That was a bad idea. Ugh, he shouldn’t have done that. Felix scrambles for a book and sticks his nose into it. “Of course. My crew goes into Fhirdiad all the time.” 

“But not you.” Sometimes Sylvain picks up on the nitpicky details way too fast. “Why not?” 

Felix laughs into his book. “Because then someone might see me.” 

Sylvain goes quiet. And then, without warning, he rolls off the bed with a little thud as his feet hit the floor. Felix peeps over the top of his book as Sylvain marches to his desk and sits down. “Don’t worry,” he says at last. “Nobody has had any clue where you are. Some people thought you might be dead.” 

What, dead? Him? Felix blinks. He’d never really considered that. It wasn’t like there was some grand proclamation of the death of the Duke Fraldarius, and Leonie hadn’t ever mentioned it. Didn’t his friends know he wouldn’t die that easy? 

Besides, he’s already thought of what he would do if he were to die. A simple sword, all wrapped up, delivered to this very doorstep. No matter how many years passed, he knows Sylvain would understand. Would be able to tell everyone that Felix had died. But people already think he might have gone and gotten himself killed? 

“Oh,” Felix says, for lack of anything else to say. He’s not sure whether he feels more indignant or guilty. No, it’s guilty. He feels guilty. Felix stares at the stiff and angry way Sylvain grabs his paperwork and begins working through it. Finally, he dares to ask: “Did you ever think that?”

Sylvain gives him an exasperated look. “Of course not.” 

“Why?” 

And Sylvain just shrugs. “Because...because I think I would feel it, that’s all. Now sleep or something so I can focus on root crops.”

Felix raises an eyebrow. Has he been dismissed? Is this Sylvain’s way of telling him to fuck off? He doesn’t feel like fucking off. He feels like making Sylvain angry. Properly angry. Like a person, not the Margrave Gautier. Maybe it will make the guilt in his stomach dissipate a little. 

He chucks a book in the direction of the desk. It misses by a wide margin, but makes Sylvain glance up nevertheless. “Why are your training grounds outside?” Felix complains. “That’s so stupid!”

Sylvain narrows his eyes. “Not like you’d be training in your condition. Now go sleep.” 

“I’m fucking bored!” Felix shoots back. “There’s nothing to do here, and this stupid snow is going to trap us here for weeks!” 

“It will melt with the first sunny day, so shut up, I’m trying to work!”

“Make me!” 

“—what?”

“Make me shut up.” Felix crosses his arms across his chest and grins. Riling up Sylvain is way easier than it used to be. Fun too. He doesn’t feel too guilty anymore either. People were just stupid to think he’d died. 

Come on, Sylvain, make me shut up.

Sylvain’s mouth opens and closes uselessly a few times. There was a time when he would have just tackled Felix to shut him up, but now Felix is injured and Sylvain is a lord. Felix throws another book, and this one hits the table leg, making one of the huge stacks of paper wobble, tilt, and then fall right off the table. The pile hits the floor with a thud and then the individual papers fan out across the room with a rustling sound. Felix chokes back a laugh. Sylvain just chokes. 

“You!” 

Felix shrugs one shoulder. It feels good to have gotten a reaction. “I’d say sorry, but I’m not.” Sylvain scoffs and gets on the floor, starting to gather his papers. The sudden silence lets the guilt rush back in at the moment’s chance. Maybe people weren’t stupid to think he’d died. Maybe he should have...sent a letter or something. I’m alive, but please don’t come find me. Please just let me hide in peace. 

But Sylvain knew. He would feel it, he’d said. Felix nibbles on his lip. “How would you know if I was dead or not?” he calls softly after Sylvain has ducked out of his sight. It sort of surprises him when Sylvain pops right up at the side of the bed, thunking a messy pile of papers onto the covers. His hair is even more of a bird’s nest than usual. “How would you feel it?” Felix asks.

Pained brown eyes bore into his own over a ruffled stack of paper. “Stick together,” Sylvain says through gritted teeth, “Until we die together. At least one of us kept to that.” 

Felix’s breath stops in his chest. He has to force it back out again. “You...you…” He clenches his jaw and looks away. He can’t meet Sylvain’s eyes right now. “You don’t have to remember that stupid promise. We were kids.” 

“And that was what made it so important,” Sylvain says, voice taking a softer tone, and then he grunts a little as he stands and carries his papers over to the table. Felix lies in bed and plays with the stitches of a quilt as Sylvain cleans up the rest of the papers, slowly, until everything is back in place. 

“There we are,” he says with satisfaction. Felix doesn’t glance up. “Felix?” 

“Ngh.” 

“Get some sleep, okay? I’m sure we can find something interesting to do in this old place, but you have to be healed first.” 

Felix sighs and settles a little further down into the pillows. “Can we spar?”

“In this snow?” 

“When the snow is gone. Can we spar?” He’s being stupid. Maybe he actually is tired. The moment the snow is even slightly melted, Felix is out of here. He never meant to come here in the first place, and no way in hell is he going to stick around. 

But Sylvain sounds pretty content when he replies. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s spar.”

Good. Because Felix isn’t good with his words. He was raised to speak with swords, and sometimes he thinks it’s the only way he can truly speak at all. 

I raise my sword to you because you’re my enemy. I lay down my sword because you are not. 

I use my sword to protect you because I think you are important.

But I practice my sword with you because I’m trying to speak to you. It’s why I became so picky about who I spar with, even if I never was as a kid. Because now I’m a sword, and if I speak with the sword, only the most special people get to hear me while that sword is still learning to speak. Byleth. Leonie. Sylvain. All people Felix has let in, in some way or another, because he needs them to understand what his words won’t say. 

He never said it aloud, but he always appreciated when Sylvain would drop everything to run after him and practice.

“Here,” Sylvain says softly after a few moments, and comes to tie the two remaining pieces of the canopy back. “Now we can see each other better.” 

It’s simple, and it’s sweet, both things Felix has never been good at being. So he just smiles weakly and settles into the pillows to watch Sylvain work.

It’s very boring.

***

Sylvain sighs deep when he realizes Felix has gone to sleep. He wishes he’d known that ‘irritable’ was going to translate into ‘petulant’ and ‘childish’. 

Goddess, he just can’t believe Felix ran off to be a mercenary for eight years. And then teamed up with Leonie? So Leonie got to know where Felix was and how he was doing—that he was still _alive_ —but Sylvain didn’t?

“You just...have to be open to the possibility.” Dorothea had looked wretched, but she was the only one who was good with conversations like this. It was two years after the end of the war, two years after Felix disappeared into nothing, and they were all so tired of watching Sylvain stare out the window like Felix would reappear at any moment. “There were a lot of rogue soldiers around.” 

“If Felix was dead we would have found his body,” Sylvain had insisted, “Surrounded by a lot of other bodies.” 

And so he believed, though his vigil at the window slipped away bit by bit. By now, Sylvain isn’t sure how many of their old classmates think Felix is alive. Looking back on his conversation with Dimitri, Sylvain can’t even be sure where their king lands on the subject. Ingrid knows he’s alive. She’d said that Felix was too stubborn to die. Ashe was more romantic and insisted that a great knight sometimes needed a lone quest to complete some sort of grander mission, though Sylvain isn’t sure how much of that was imagination, reassurance, or true belief. But other than those two, Sylvain isn’t sure. 

Will it be fair to let them go on thinking Felix disappeared when Sylvain knows he’s alive? Leonie had, sure, but it’s different when it’s _Sylvain_ keeping this a secret from Dimitri, from Ingrid. Honestly, Felix, why did you have to put him in this situation?

And honestly, Felix, why did you want to disappear so completely? Forget Sylvain or Leonie—Felix should have let them all know he was alive. But when Sylvain had mentioned it, Felix had almost seemed surprised that people might make the assumption he was dead. Even though the whole time, Felix kept completely quiet and made no contact with anyone except Leonie, not a letter, not a whisper, was as dead to the world as possible without actually being a corpse...he was surprised people would think him dead. It was ridiculous! It was...it was...

No. Sylvain sets his pen down and goes to sit on the edge of the bed. Felix’s face has gone soft in sleep, his breath coming in steady inhales and exhales. The usual line between his eyebrows has been smoothed away. Felix was surprised because he never meant to fake his death. Felix was running from something else, and it makes Sylvain sick to think about it. Because it’s his fault, isn’t it? It’s his fault. 

Sylvain still has a collection of board games stored away in a closet. He grabs the ones he thinks Felix will like and takes them all to the bed. And then goes to the library and finds some books on military tactics. And then he gallumphs down the stairs to the kitchen, makes himself a snack while Ms. Adelaide works on dinner, and snatches one of the kittens from the pantry, the all black one with a crooked back leg. Back upstairs, he drops the kitten onto the bed with a flourish. The kitten yowls, but then quickly realizes how comfortable the den of pillows and blankets surrounding Felix is. It curls up on the quilts atop Felix’s chest. Aw. 

Well, the next thing for pleasing Felix would be swords, but Sylvain isn’t risking that, not with how much damage Felix has done just by throwing books. He thinks on it, but can’t come up with anything else in the mansion to entertain a bedridden guest. Games, books, fluffy animal. None of those things are in Felix’s usual repertoire, except perhaps the cat, but Sylvain expects the cat alone will save him a lot of grief. He’ll ask Ms. Adelaide to make ginger cookies. 

Books. Ashe was continually after Felix regarding books. And Felix has continued to watch over Ashe and Ingrid as well, through his crew members he sent into Fhirdiad. While people thought Felix was gone, Felix was actually watching them. 

Had Felix been watching _him_? Sylvain stands beside the bed and eyes Felix with trepidation. The mansion is awfully far north to keep an eye on without standing out as suspicious. Besides, Gautier and Fraldarius territories haven’t had much bandit activity that would require mercenaries. Sylvain can only think of two or three occasions over the last eight years he’d actually needed to hire someone to do the job, so Felix wouldn’t have had much chance to keep an eye on Sylvain the same way he spied on the capital. On one hand, it’s good to not be spied on. On the other, maybe it would be nice to know Felix had put in just a little effort. 

I know. I know I’m the reason you ran away. But did you really hate me that much? 

He wishes Leonie had stuck around. Then things wouldn’t be so damn awkward. 

The first year had been alright. He’d figured Felix needed some time alone, because he was and always would be that sort of person and the war had affected him in ways Sylvain didn’t know how to fix. But as one year edged into two, then he became worried. Not that Felix was dead, of course, just that Felix was staying away for an awful long time. And two years became three. Four. That was when he began to realize that Felix wasn’t just taking time—he was simply gone. He’d taken himself in the middle of the night and gone. 

He wasn’t coming back. 

Years blurred together after that. He supposes it’s only been four years since he officially gave up on this being an extended vacation, but it feels much longer. Goddess, he feels like he’s aged a century. Sylvain finally gives in and sits on the bed instead of standing beside it, and then flops over so he’s curled up on top of the quilts and covers. It had felt so nice, sleeping with Felix last night, and Felix hadn’t even complained! Or at least, Sylvain had fallen asleep before he could hear any of it. Sleeping with Felix had always been oddly comforting. Maybe it was because Felix slept like a log, albeit with cold feet, or because his breath was always so nice and steady. Or maybe it was because they’d been sharing beds since they were kids. Felix had been sneaking in and out of Sylvain’s bed from the day they were introduced, probably because it was also Sylvain’s first time at the Fraldarius Castle and Felix had come to make a fort in his bed to make the unknown room seem less scary. They’d stayed up with lamps to keep the darkness at bay and Felix had listed all the fun things they were going to do with four kids to play. He’d mentioned hide and seek a lot.

They’d never really kicked that habit of sharing beds, which was funny, considering all that happened. Sylvain distinctly, _vividly_ remembers crashing in Felix’s room in the Officers Academy more than once because he didn’t want girls knocking at his door, and while Felix certainly judged and spat insults at Sylvain for his dating habits, at least he wasn’t as righteous as Dimitri. Felix had been so rigid in those days, cold, but once Sylvain was desperate enough, he’d just sighed heavily and opened his door to let Sylvain seek asylum. “Sleep on the floor, dumbass,” he’d grumble, and then not say a word of protest when Sylvain slid into the little school bed beside him. He’d be gone in the mornings long before Sylvain awoke, training, and neither of them would mention the incident again. Or again. Or again. Really, the amount of times Sylvain slept in Felix’s bed is embarrassing. Sometimes the girl wasn’t even real, and Sylvain isn’t sure if Felix knew that or not. Sylvain just...wanted to sleep with him. 

And then the war. They’d fought so close, but Felix had always felt so far away. It wasn’t until the five year anniversary and the discovery that Byleth was alive that things went back to...that things went the way they did. Sure, it was back to normal in some respects, but other things changed. 

He’d thought they were all changing for the good. 

When they shared a bed then, Felix would wrap his arms around Sylvain’s waist and burrow his cold nose into Sylvain’s chest. Seeking solace. Seeking peace. Seeking anything that wasn’t battle after battle after battle. And Sylvain had been more than happy to provide. 

He’d decided he’d be happy to provide a whole lot more, once the whole wretched war was over. 

Sylvain leans over and strokes a hand over Felix’s cheek, feather-light touch. He could touch him back then, amidst the bustle of the camp and the roar of a victorious army. Could touch his face, and Felix would lean into the touch and close his eyes as if Sylvain’s hand was all he needed to bring him peace and it was one of those moments—Sylvain can’t even remember which one, maybe it was a process that stretched over months—that he’d realized what a damned idiot he’d been for so long. 

Sylvain sighs and snuggles deeper into the blankets. Maybe he can just ignore his paperwork today. It’s not like the snow is letting them go anywhere. 

Felix must be pretty exhausted from wandering around in the middle of the night, because he sleeps through practically the whole day. Sylvain wanders in and out of various states of consciousness, always wary of when the kitten perks up and looks for the next place to practice those cool things called ‘claws’ it had discovered recently. He does get up once to get wood from the kitchen so he can build the fire up again. There’s some burnt up paper in the fireplace. Sylvain grimaces. Did something fly in there when Felix hit the table? Hopefully it wasn’t anything important. He lights the fire anyway, the magic coming more easily to his hand this time, and returns to the bed, just managing to pluck the kitten away from Felix’s neck as it stretches out its little paws. 

Ms. Adelaide comes to check on Felix in the afternoon. His fever is down and the sleep will help with the rest, she says. What do you want for dinner?

What Sylvain wants is to have a normal dinner, actually. The kind where he and Ms. Adelaide and Linus and Milo the stableboy all eat around the wooden table in the kitchen. It’s a relatively new thing, only implemented in the last year or so, but Sylvain prefers it immensely to eating by himself in the dining room or alone in his study. Linus will get used to it. Milo is a free soul and doesn’t have qualms about using Sylvain’s first name or asking for the salt. Felix will most likely stay asleep, and there’s a cat if he wakes up. And books. And games. Though Sylvain is pretty sure Felix sat down at the monastery and pet the same cat for three hours straight one time so this kitten should be plenty. 

It is like at the Academy, Sylvain thinks with a happy little jog in his heart when, an hour later, Ms. Adelaide comes to fetch him for dinner. Commoners eating alongside the nobility, and anyone who cared was going to get the sharp side of Dorothea’s tongue, make no mistake. Sure, some people were more aware of their status than others—Sir Ferdinand von Aegir—but it was a learning curve for all of them. A good curve. If Sylvain can just get his own household on the same curve, he’ll be golden. 

Milo has spent the last few days keeping the horses warm and fed inside the stables. His cheeks are pink from cold and he’s warming his hands in his armpits while seated when Sylvain arrives. Linus is arranging the silverware and glasses of wine. Ms. Adelaide goes to take her meat and potato dish out of the oven. There’s going to be a lot of meat and potatoes for the next few weeks. Linus looks up when Sylvain arrives. “Ah, hello sir! And how is...how is...how is Felix?” 

That’s enough to jolt Sylvain from any doziness he might have still been carrying around. “Wait, you call _him_ Felix? When I’ve been asking you to call me—”

“He said if I called him the Duke Fraldarius he would cut my tongue out, sir!” Linus replies, nervous as a field mouse. “He seemed to mean it.”

Sylvain frowns, pulls out his chair, sits, and then declares to the room at large, “I will tell him not to cut out anyone’s tongues.” He pauses, thinks, and then adds in a more conversational tone, “Anyway, it’s not like he means it. Or any threat he might tell you. It’s how he makes people leave him alone.”

“What, so a regular ‘fuck off’ doesn’t do the trick?” Milo asks. Linus collapses into his chair in seeming grief at Milo’s manners. Ms. Adelaide carries the first two plates over to the table. 

“He tells people to fuck off a lot too,” Sylvain admits. “Thanks Ms. Adelaide, smells great! I think the threat thing is when he wants people to fuck off, but doesn’t want them to know he wants them to fuck off.” He wonders how many times he needs to say ‘fuck’ to get Linus to stop flinching ever so slightly at the word. And then thinks that he probably shouldn’t be discussing Felix like this with people who really don’t know him. He clears his throat and smiles as Ms. Adelaide brings the last two plates and they’re finally all seated around the table. “Well, here’s to another day of being completely snowed in.” 

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“Do we have to cheer to that? My toes are going to fall off.” 

“Here’s to Milo’s toes hopefully not falling off!”

It’s a pleasant dinner. The dynamic, as always, is a little off, but the food is good, the wine is good, and Sylvain returns to Felix’s room sated and with a bowl of meat and potatoes in hand for Felix. 

Felix is awake now, lying on his side. He’s ripped some of his bandages off to make a toy for the kitten, who happily pounces around the bed trying to catch its prey. 

“Don’t threaten to cut my staff’s tongues out,” Sylvain says in way of greeting. 

Felix eyes him up with a bit of a smirk. “You know I don’t actually mean it.” 

“But _they_ don’t, so please.” Sylvain sits at the edge of the bed and puts the bowl on the side table. “How do you feel?”

Felix drags the loose bandage across his body so the kitten ends up in Sylvain’s lap. “I want to get up.” 

“Tomorrow,” Sylvain promises. “All the way to the kitchen. For a bath.” 

Felix props himself up a little higher on the pillows. “Do I smell that bad?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you do.” 

“Oh.” Felix frowns, and it seems he’s actually upset by the fact, completely contrary to what Sylvain had expected. Sylvain takes pity on him and hands him his dinner while his other hand keeps the kitten occupied in his lap. 

“You smell like blood and sweat. Anyone would if they’d been skewered in the gut. But if Ms. Adelaide thinks your stitches have healed sufficiently, we can heat some water and get the tub set up in the kitchen. You’ll feel better after being clean.” 

Felix had always detested smelling of blood, after all. A strange contradiction to his love for the sword.

Now, Felix just nods and begins to eat. Sylvain plays with the kitten and watches the way it runs with its bent back leg. He normally just lets the mansion’s cats do whatever they like and doesn’t care if they choose to give birth in some random room or cupboard every once in a while, but if this little one can’t hunt effectively, Sylvain might have to start putting out food. Which would be eaten by the other cats first, of course. Ugh, problem not solved. Why couldn’t he be like his father and just let the crippled kitten die? Because then he’d be a massive asshole, that’s why. 

“Do you want to play? Is that why you dumped all these on me?” Felix. He sets aside his empty bowl and gestures at the board games spread out over the bed. “Does Linus not know how to play Taktik?”

“You hardly know how to play Taktik,” Sylvain replies with a grin. “Or have you been practicing with your mercenary crew?”

“Screw you. Set up the pieces.” 

Sylvain crushes him into the dirt. Once. Twice. Three times. 

“Well, I have to let you be better than me at something,” Felix mumbles, reaching for the kitten and holding it gently to his chest. “Okay, let’s try Shach.”

Felix is a little better at this game and it takes longer for Sylvain to beat him. There’s a moment Sylvain thinks Felix might win, but Felix doesn’t notice the flaw in Sylvain’s defense and loses five turns later. At this point Sylvain goes to feed the fire. “It’s a good thing you had the Professor to tell you what to do, Felix, because you can’t strategize worth shit.” 

Felix grunts. They both know it’s true. As much as he might act independently, Felix has never been without a commanding officer, whether it was Byleth or his father or Dimitri. Sylvain supposes Leonie fills that role now. Even if the order is ‘go kill bad guys, protect the good guys’, that order has still always been made. It’s another strange dichotomy, like blood and swords, and another one that Sylvain has never really understood, but he expects it came about in the time Felix was a squire for the kingdom, back when the gaping hole of Glenn’s death was still raw and bloody. He was just a keen Fraldarius blade, more weapon than boy, and he’d never feel complete without a sword in his hand ever again. And swords don’t know how to lead. Weapons can’t come up with strategy. Felix had let that slip one night, on the campaign trail when they’d stolen a bit of ale. He’s a sword. All a sword can do is fight. And even more, he had a Crest. A Crest that made him an even better sword. Just a sword, though, never more than that. And in return, he’d forgotten a lot of the things that made him human. Better to be a blade.

Sylvain didn’t bother telling him otherwise at the time. It was no use. He knew from experience. Tell a kid he’s only worth one thing for so long, and that’s all they can believe. Felix is a weapon. Sylvain is a Crest. No wonder they both ended up so messed up.

The world did them both wrong, Sylvain thinks as he sets the board for another round. Crests and nobles, both irreparably damaging their heirs for a thousand years before a king came along to end it. Though, ironically, Sylvain is pretty sure the only reason his own friendship with the little Fraldarius boy was encouraged was because Felix was born with a major Crest, and that was a power worth making allies with. Ingrid and even Dimitri hadn’t been as important to his father sometimes as securing a link with Felix. The Fraldarius household, with two Crest-bearing heirs, one of them a Major Crest at that, was set to become the most powerful name in the Kingdom, if not all of Fódlan, and the Margrave Gautier had wanted in on that. 

Sylvain is so vindictively happy his father got to see the beginning of the collapse of the nobility before he died. 

“Your move,” Felix prompts him, tapping the wooden board between them. 

“Sorry. Um…okay. Your move.”

Felix is still pretty awake after an hour or two of board games, so Sylvain grabs some of his papers and lies on the bed, carefully going through them while Felix reads up on guerilla warfare. The kitten naps between them. 

“Are you going to crush me in your sleep tonight too?” Felix asks after a while, when he’s beginning to sink back down under the blankets. 

Sylvain straightens his papers and raises a brow. “Will you be up and wandering in the middle of the night again?” 

“If I say no, will you believe me?” 

“Right.” Sylvain turns over another page. “Go to sleep, Felix.” 

Felix grumbles about it, naturally, but it’s not long before he’s asleep again. Hopefully until morning. The uninterrupted bedrest will—please please—have given his wounds the time they needed to heal. Sylvain isn’t sure anything short of chains will keep Felix in bed much longer. 

Sylvain keeps going over his reports until the fire begins to die again. He takes his loss of light as an excuse to go change into sleep robes and wash his face and teeth. He returns to Felix’s room and slips under the covers on the right side of the bed, far enough away he won’t be accused of crushing anyone. The kitten comes and claws at his chest through the blankets to prove it hates him and then goes to sleep around Felix’s neck. Sylvain narrows his eyes at it, but then reaches over and locks his fingers in a single circle around Felix’s wrist. Yes, it looks like a handcuff, but at least he’ll wake if Felix tries to get up again. 

That’s the only reason.

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of fish in the pond, small ones, maybe just guppies really. It’s a bit chilly still to stick his feet in the water, and he hasn’t been around the pond enough to see just what rules exist and which exist to be broken. There would probably be objections if he tried to go for a swim.

Not that he wants to swim. And he’d disturb the guppies. But maybe it would make people smile. A singular person, really. 

Goddess, Sylvain just really, really wants to make Felix smile.

But sparring is all Felix wants to do anymore. Whenever Sylvain tries to talk to him, he stares at Sylvain like he’s some sort of enemy force and then makes some excuse to go spar. Every. Single. Damn. Time. Okay, maybe Sylvain shouldn’t open the conversation with talking about girls, but even on the rare occasion Felix seeks him out, they follow the same format anyway. Felix spits out insults, excuses himself to go train, and leaves Sylvain behind wondering just where the conversation went wrong. And why does Felix look at him like that? Like a stranger he just happens to loathe? Aren’t they friends?

Weren’t...they friends? 

Felix has changed, though. He smiles less, laughs almost never. His words have barbs in them that, while always witty, had never been so sharp, actually said to wound. And while he had always had a passion for training, it was never the obsession he holds now. It had been jarring, when Sylvain had tried to run over and tackle him on the first day at the Officers Academy. Because that’s what friends did, right? Especially best friends who hadn’t seen each other in so long. Felix had neatly sidestepped him and told Sylvain to stay away from him on no uncertain terms before heading straight for the training grounds, not even bothering to stick around for the introductory tour. 

Yesterday though, yesterday had been odd, with Felix coming to apologize for one of the many, many insults he’s thrown Sylvain’s way in the few weeks they’ve been at the Officers Academy. True, Felix’s insults have definitely upgraded in their years apart, but he never expected Felix to come apologize for one. Sylvain had taken full advantage, bringing up their childhood, trying to remind Felix that it’s _him_ talking, thank you. And again, there was a moment that he thought, ah, Felix can come back to me. But then he’d gone and put his foot in his mouth. He winces now at how bluntly he’d brought it up. _“But you're different, Felix. You used to be so, I don't know... carefree when we were young. Now you're the exact opposite.”_

Well, duh. Glenn died. And Felix got his first real taste of blood during the western suppression. Sylvain still hasn’t really tasted blood. Not like that. No wonder Felix is less carefree. But his smile when he wins a bout of sparring, that’s the same. His hatred of sweets. His frown when he’s concentrating. The eyerolls that he learned from Glenn and the way he places his palm over his face like that will block the stupid out, although he used to laugh when he did that. And suddenly, ah, there he is in some random classroom, nibbling on his thumbnail, and it’s the Felix from ten years ago. The little boy running to keep up, scaling trees, swimming in the mountain lakes. If Felix’s bitter personality now is the result of hardship, then some happy years should help fix it, right? Sylvain would be okay taking responsibility for that. 

The conversation had devolved from there, of course. Felix had spouted some nonsense about Sylvain being just the same good-for-nothing, but they both knew it was a lie. Maybe that’s why Felix stares at him like a stranger. Maybe that’s why he hates him so. Because Sylvain is a whole _new_ kind of good-for-nothing now, and Felix is smart enough to spot a fake smile. 

Goddess. 

Hah, what Goddess? What Goddess who watches over Fódlan could have let the Tragedy of Duscur happen? Just look how many lives She derailed with Her incompetence. Where is Glenn? He should be here, engaged to Ingrid, and Ingrid wouldn’t be receiving the letters from her father she leaves ripped up in the trash. He should be here, sparring with Felix and making him smile and feel safe in a way Sylvain obviously can’t do anymore. What about Dimitri? Sylvain doesn’t listen much to Felix’s dark mutterings about Dimitri being some feral beast because it’s Dimitri and ‘feral’ is the last thing he could be, but that doesn’t change the fact the whole dormitory knows he wakes up screaming from nightmares. What about Dedue, who keeps his losses close to heart so the first time you learn he even had a sister is when you learn she had her head hacked off? What about the entire people of Duscur? Slaughtered. Are you happy, Goddess? Is it because they didn’t believe in you that they deserved to die for a crime they didn't commit? 

Maybe he needs to pick up some girls. It won’t make this awful taste in his mouth go away, but the spiteful satisfaction he gets from always uncovering the fact they just want him for his Crest will have to be good enough. 

Sylvain whistles as he strolls from the pond down towards the front gates and the market. He tips his head at the guard and takes the steps two at a time, at least until he catches the slim figure examining weapons at the armorer’s place. Felix’s face is as lit up as Sylvain has seen since they got here as he handles one particular blade, and it’s worth the almost certainty of verbal abuse to slightly detour and see what’s got him so happy and if Sylvain can buy ten of them.

“Hey Felix,” he calls, lacing his hands behind his head. “Whatcha got there?” 

Felix’s face darkens slightly when he turns and sees Sylvain, but he’s still smiling as he presents the sword. “A genuine Zoltan blade!” he says, which means nothing to Sylvain but apparently a great, great bit to Felix. 

“Oh, wow!” Sylvain enthuses, trying to sound as genuine as he can, because even if he has no idea who this Zoltan was, it’s still cool for Felix to find something he’s so excited about. “Are you going to buy it?” 

Felix shoots him a scornful look. “You think I’d let a genuine _Zoltan blade_ fall into someone else’s hands?” 

Sylvain nods. “Oh. Yeah. Of course. I meant more, do you have the money?” His dad hadn’t sent him with much to spend on frivolous things. Well, he _had_ , because a Gautier couldn’t appear poor, but Sylvain spends it all on his romantic endeavours. Felix just looks at him with confusion. Of course he has the money. He’s the sole inheritor of the Fraldarius estate. 

Sylvain stares at the sword. Stares at Felix. Stares at the sword. Stares at Felix. “Do you want to go get lunch?” he blurts out, and Felix freezes for a moment with a finger still appreciating the sharp tip of the blade. 

Finally, he turns his head. “Why are you asking me that?” 

“Because.” Oh boy, he should have thought this through. “I want to?” 

“You don’t sound very sure.” Felix returns his attention to the sword. “Go find some girls to flirt with. I don’t have the time.” 

Of course, Felix wasn’t the only one who changed. Sylvain just thinks he’s doing a better job of hiding it. He used to flirt and wink at ladies because it was fun and made them laugh and ruffle his hair. Like Ingrid’s grandma. Now he flirts like it’s warfare, waiting for the next girl to arrive, all sweet smiles and dimpled cheeks until he can find the first reason to dump her, because it’s either her or him and he’s determined to win. He breaks her heart before she uses him for precious little Crest babies. It’s cruel and he knows it, and maybe of the two of them, Sylvain has turned into a worse person than Felix. At least with Felix, what you see is what you get. 

But with Sylvain, at least the hurt goes two ways. 

“We can go out on the town!” Sylvain offers, a little desperate. “I know some great places, food even better than the dining hall!”

Felix swings the sword in an easy loop of someone who views the sword as just another part of themselves. “I’m sure you do. That’s where you bring the girls.” 

Sylvain risks bodily injury to step in front of Felix and place a hand on his, halting the blade’s progress. “I can bring you.” 

Felix studies him, brows raised, mouth a hard line. “Not interested,” he grits out at last, and shoves past Sylvain to speak with the armorer. There’s the clink of money exchanging hands. Quite a bit of it. 

Sylvain stands with his back to it, watching the other merchants across the way. Do they have happy lives and families too? Any cute daughters of marriageable age? Somehow, the prospect of seeking out some girls to take to lunch doesn’t excite him at all anymore. 

The tip of a sword lights upon his shoulder. Sylvain turns back to Felix as the Zoltan blade is sheathed with a practiced ease. Felix grins as the sword comes to rest, but it fades as he looks to Sylvain, a more...complicated expression taking over his face. Embarrassment? Stubbornness? Possibly even sadness? Or is that apprehension? Sylvain can’t tell. He can’t read Felix at all anymore. “I’ll be training tonight,” Felix says with that odd expression. “At dusk.” 

Sylvain is about to make some snarky comment about how, wow, what a break in routine, before he realizes this as what it is. 

An invitation. 

Maybe all Felix wants to do is train these days, but once upon a before-four-years-ago, they sparred as friends for fun. And given how much more Felix values his training now, an invitation to join—instead of just barging in like Sylvain usually does these days—is a precious thing. A sign that, in some small way, Felix still wants him. 

Felix is different now. And impossible to read. Strict and snarky and he never laughs, not like he used to, all bubbly and innocent. But that’s alright. 

Sylvain would take great honor in making him laugh again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and special thank you to those who left kudos and kind comments! ♥   
> New chapter up next week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to readers, kudos-leavers, and kind commenters! You're the best~

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Felix pokes Sylvain awake. It’s technically morning, according to the light coming in through the windows. “You said I could get up today.” 

“Ms. Adelaide has to check your stitches,” Sylvain says with a yawn, and burrows his face back in the pillows. Felix shakes the wrist Sylvain is holding. 

“So go get her!” 

“She’s still sleeping! Saints, Felix, she’s in her sixties, just let her sleep! Let  _ me _ sleep! Go back to sleep!” 

Felix huffs and Sylvain knows he’s pouting but whatever, let him sulk. Sylvain is going to sleep. He’s in a dozing haze for the next hour, hearing the clack-clack of wooden pieces moving across the board and the sound of soft cooing as Felix interacts with the kitten. And then someone thumps his shoulder repeatedly. 

“She’s here! She’s here! Ms. Ada, can I get up now?” 

Sylvain snorts into his pillow. “You sound like a little kid.”

“Shut up. You’re a jackass.” Felix uses a  _ much _ nicer voice for Ms. Adelaide. “Should I lay down? Take my shirt off? How do you know I’m okay to get up?”

Ms. Adelaide laughs, a bright bell in the murky morning of Sylvain’s mind. “Lay down and push the covers away. Does His Lordship feel like helping out or just lying there all day?” 

Sylvain releases his grip on Felix’s wrist. “Option two!” Felix hits him with a pillow. But he’s perfectly content to lie there like a slug, listening to Ms. Adelaide get to work. 

“Okay, pop your shirt open for me. Let’s just snip these away...there. Mmm…”

“What? What is it?” 

“Nothing bad. Everything has healed up nicely. You’ll scar, but the wound seems to be closed. I still want to wrap you up before you have a bath, though, keep everything clean. We can remove the stitches in a day or two if you promise to take it easy. They’re not necessary anymore but we won’t aggravate the area.” 

“I promise!” Felix agrees way too quickly. 

“Liar,” Sylvain accuses from his side of the bed. 

A fist hits the middle of his back, knocking all the air out of his lungs and sending Sylvain on a coughing spree. “Shut up!” 

“Alright, alright, let’s not actually kill our dear Margrave, alright?” Ms. Adelaide, saving his life. “Sit up so I can bandage you up again.” When Sylvain peeks out from the pillow, he finds her looking at him with a sweetly expectant expression. “Perhaps you could start water for the bath?” 

Right. Filling the tub will take a while. Sylvain sits up and swings his feet out of bed. “Gotcha.” He rushes into his room to change and comb his hair into some sort of shape. He wrecks his efforts by pulling a sweater over his head, but it’s wretched cold so oh well. He can hear Linus in the library as he passes and moves extra quietly to the stairs so his secretary can keep about his work without fussing. And Milo will be out with the horses. Sylvain finds the ornate tin tub in the far closet with a bunch of brooms and his mother’s things he couldn’t bear to throw out. It’s a little dusty, even after just a few weeks' disuse, and it has Sylvain sneezing by the time he’s lugged it to the kitchen right in front of the fireplace. Baths aren’t really a thing that happen often here. He stokes the fire already sizzling there with a couple of logs and fire magic that is coming back to him much quicker now. He takes their largest pot and goes to fill it in the carefully constructed drum of collected rainwater and melted snow that hydrates so much of the house—perhaps the only thing his father did Sylvain is actually impressed by—and then struggles back with it to attach above the fire to heat. He only needs about eight pots to fill the tub.

It’s tedious work. Sylvain slips up once and burns his hand when he loses grip on the pot after it’s heated, which has him hissing and wincing and then remembering he has healing abilities. That does make things easier, doesn’t it? How many times have Ms. Adelaide or Linus hurt themselves and Sylvain could have helped? It was stupid and selfish to let his magic fall to the wayside the way he did. 

But it was the same reason his lance goes mostly untouched these days. He just...didn’t want to relive it. Any of it. 

He thinks—no, he knows—that Dimitri is the same. Their king doesn’t even wear a ceremonial sword. And the lance Sylvain tosses in his carriage in case of emergencies is simple iron. The Lance of Ruin has been hidden away where no one will ever find it again. 

While the fifth pot of water is warming, Sylvain goes on the hunt for soap. He finds a tin of it in the same closet the tub had been stashed in. Towels. That’s also an idea. He dashes up the stairs to the linen closet, which has been significantly emptied to supply Felix with blankets, and grabs a couple of towels. He catches Linus’s attention by accident, but waves a hand for his secretary to keep doing what he was doing, and it must work because no one follows him back to the kitchen. The fifth pot is ready. Sylvain pours it in the tub, careful of splashing, and hurries to refill the pot with water. Okay. He has a tub. He has soap. He has towels. He has almost all the water he needs. The only thing missing is an occupant. 

Said occupant arrives not much later. Felix moves carefully, arms stiff, with Ms. Adelaide at his side. They never bothered to button his shirt, and Sylvain can see the careful wrappings, designed to protect the stitches during immersion in water. The fact he’s still going strong after coming down the stairs is a good sign. Sylvain beams. “Just one more moment!” 

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Ms. Adelaide says, and turns away to head towards the kitchen door. All she leaves is a change of clothing.

Felix frowns and leans on the dinner table for support. “You’re not...staying?” 

Ms. Adelaide smiles. “I think Sylvain can make sure you don’t accidentally drown.” Felix turns his frown on Sylvain instead as the kitchen door closes. 

Sylvain spins to watch the water in the pot rather than meet Felix’s gaze. Ms. Adelaide abandoning them was unexpected, but it’s just a bath. Sylvain had been to the public bathhouses with Felix plenty of times, and even without that, it’s nothing he hadn’t seen before. But eight years makes a difference. Quite a large one. Sylvain gulps as he hears fabric rustle. Felix pulling off his trousers and stripping off his shirt. And then bare feet on the stone floor, so loud all of a sudden. A quick splash of water, probably testing the temperature. “Can…” Felix begins, and he’s pink in the cheeks when Sylvain looks over his shoulder. “Can you give me a hand...climbing in?”

Oh. Of course. Clambering into the tub would be hard with the bandages constricting his midsection like that and his wound to boot. Sylvain holds out a hand, and then has an idea, and snatches the hand back just as Felix reaches for it. He ignores Felix’s annoyed expression because he’s good at that, and goes to find a stool. He slides it across the floor with his foot while staying safe on the other side of the tub. Safe? What would make any part of this unsafe? It’s just a bath. For someone who sorely needs it. So why does this situation bother him all of a sudden? But no time to think about it. Felix snatches his hand before Sylvain can pull away this time and squeezes tight as he carefully climbs onto the stool and slowly, slowly lowers himself into the water. Splash of one foot, and then the other. Sylvain listens, eyes turned toward the ceiling and hand clutching back at Felix’s just as hard. Felix curses softly and his hand tightens even more for support when his feet slide from under him. Sylvain drops his gaze from the ceiling to quickly lean forward and slip his free arm under Felix’s back, right where he can feel the shoulder muscles tensing. It’s an automatic movement and now Sylvain is practically hugging a completely naked ex-best friend, but it doesn’t matter. Swords or slippery bathtubs, Sylvain had sworn to keep him safe. 

Felix looks at him then, looks for confirmation that Sylvain has him, eyebrows furrowed and drawn up into an almost anxious expression. His breath comes in short and shallows bursts, and Sylvain nods, the gentle smile coming easily to his face. He lowers Felix all the way into the bathtub so the water comes up to his shoulders and gives him some time to get used to the heat and any pain his injury may be causing. “There we go. You alright?”

Felix breathes in steam and sighs, long and deep. “I’m alright.” 

Sylvain sighs too, and then slowly adds the last pot of water to the tub, filling it just right. He then travels over to where the stool is. He collapses onto it, just tall enough to be able to see Felix’s head and shoulders without it being awkward. The fire warms his back, a little too hot to be entirely pleasant, but still nice. Felix has his eyes closed, head tilted back against the rim of the tub. His hair, still in those unkempt braids, floats around his shoulders. Sylvain scoots the stool a little closer. “Let me wash your hair.” 

Felix opens one eye and scowls. “My hair is fine. Leave me alone.” 

“It’s not fine. It’s dirty. I think I see pine needles in it.” He scoots closer again and reaches a careful hand into the tub, in case it gets bitten off. “I’ll be gentle, I promise. Don’t you like it when people wash your hair?” 

Felix continues glaring but does not bite any limbs off. “I don’t like people touching me.” 

“Ah, well. It’s just me. You know you can trust me.” Sylvain grins, and Felix rolls his eyes after a moment. 

“If it’ll make you  _ that _ happy.” 

Sylvain keeps grinning as he moves the stool around to the back of the tub and reaches with gentle, gentle hands for a single braid. It really is a mess. Beads and broken feathers woven everywhere. This could take hours. He pops up briefly to grab some soap, lathers up, and then he has something slippery to help himself along. He tosses another bar of soap in the water for good measure. A subtle hint. 

“So, why the braids? Some sort of mercenary thing?”

Felix shrugs. “No. I just braided it whenever it got in the way. Sometimes Leonie chops the ends off when she asks me to do her hair, but I don’t really care.” He twists a little so Sylvain can see his wry smile. “The more feral I look, the less people might recognize me. I’m still stupid sometimes. Using words a merc shouldn’t know, writing fluently. Telling employers that they’re morons when a normal person just nods and ignores the insults. If I accidentally act like a noble sometimes, I need to compensate for that.” 

Sylvain nods. “Probably shouldn’t use the word ‘compensate’ then.”

Felix narrows his eyes and then hisses when Sylvain’s fingers catch in a knot. “Trying to pull my scalp off?”

“Don’t be a baby.” Actually, he might need a damn knife to deal with this. Felix’s hair has gotten stupidly long, down past his shoulders, and sometimes when the braids themselves got in the way, it looks like he just went ahead and braided the braids. It’s a knotted mess. But luckily Felix has gotten a hold of his own soap and seems to be industriously washing his elbows, giving Sylvain free rein. He’s glad that the years of holding pens and books have allowed his callouses to fade, because it’s with his gentlest touch that Sylvain goes about unbraiding Felix’s hair for him. 

“You’re humming,” Felix notes after a while. 

Sylvain clamps his mouth down tight. He hadn’t noticed. 

“It sounded nice,” Felix adds in the same neutral tone, and Sylvain snorts a little before he tries to remember what song he was humming in the first place. Probably the ones he remembers his mother humming to him and Miklan when they were little and there was no murderous intent yet. So he hums, the fire crackles, and there’s the splish-splash sound of Felix cleaning himself up. “I was more dirty than I thought,” he comments again at some point. Sylvain can hear the frown in his voice. 

“Yup!” Sylvain replies cheerfully. “That’s why you’re having a bath. Is it still warm enough? Want me to swap some water out?” The steam has faded from the surface of the water, but Felix shakes his head. 

“It’s fine. Maybe in a little bit. Depending on how long you’re going to play at being a hairdresser back there.” 

Sylvain just starts humming again and untangles another braid, untying a feather and dropping it to the ground. He does get up from the stool to replace the cooled water after a while. He sets the pot on the fire once more and uses a bucket to toss the dirty bathwater out the door to the stables into the clean mountains of snow Milo had shovelled aside. He could comment on how the bathwater is a murky brown but Felix’s cheeks already look more pink than the heat can justify. Another two pots of hot water don’t make the bathwater left in the tub look clean, but at least it’s steaming again, and Felix’s irritated attempts to clean his nails make it soapy in no time. Sylvain returns to his post and parts the hair he’s unbraided off to one side to get it out of the way. He has to suds up several times to keep going and replaces the water once more before he’s done, but soon all the braids have been undone and untangled. “Wait here,” Sylvain says, and wipes his hands on his trousers before heading up the winding kitchen steps as a shortcut to the upstairs. He goes to rummage in what is left of his mother’s belongings in Felix’s room, notes that Ms. Adelaide has changed the sheets and everything else on the bed, and returns downstairs. He taps Felix on the back of the head. “Lean forward.”

Felix frowns and obeys. “Why?” 

Sylvain holds up the comb he stole. Felix rolls his eyes with an audible sigh but lets Sylvain stand over the tub, carefully, slowly, running the comb through his hair, working out the tangles. The ends of his hair float on the surface of the water, like dark seaweed or something less gross sounding if Sylvain could think of it. He teases the knots out, ignoring Felix’s muttered complaints, and then sticks the comb in his trouser hem and grins. “All done. Want to get out?” 

“I’m all pruney,” Felix says in a way of reply, and when he accepts Sylvain’s hand to stand up, it’s a lot less awkward this time. Sylvain hands him some towels and then helps Felix out of the tub, onto the stool, and onto the floor. “Stop acting like my mother.” Felix shoves Sylvain away, firm but not mean. “I can take care of myself.” 

“Okay, well, just...let me…” Sylvain steps in before Felix can react, rubs a towel over his head furiously, and then gathers all that damn hair he’s spent the last hour and a half untangling. He ties it off with the ribbon he also stole, a low ponytail that holds his hair loose and casual. And familiar. Sylvain backs away, stomach churning a little. Goddess, Felix looks like Glenn with his hair like that, all except for the different colored eyes. It’s unnerving. Sylvain doesn’t mind at all busying himself with emptying the water while Felix checks his bandages and gets dressed in the clothes Ms. Adelaide left behind. 

“Can we eat something?” he asks as he does up the shirt. These clothes fit a lot better than the ones he stole from Sylvain.  _ Sure, Glenn, let me whip us up some sandwiches. _ Sylvain finishes emptying the tub as much as he can by bucket first, and then pulls out some bread and cheese from the icebox. They eat at the wooden table, and Felix looks so much better now that the last of the dirt has been cleaned from his face and his hair isn’t such a mess. Brighter, somehow, though it definitely hurts a little to look at him. “Something wrong?” Felix asks when he catches Sylvain staring. 

Sylvain nods. “Yeah, you got something on your face.” 

Felix scowls and lifts a hand to wipe it away. “Where?” 

Sylvain leans across the table and flicks him in the forehead. “There.” He laughs, even as Felix threatens to take him apart limb by limb. That angry expression is pure Felix, not Glenn. He’s not having lunch with a ghost. 

Felix doesn’t have shoes and is moving a little more carefully than makes Sylvain comfortable, so they pass on the winding stone kitchen stairs and move into the hallway instead. The carpet is warmer than stone, at least, and Felix doesn’t seem so ashamed this time to hold onto Sylvain’s arm for support. But he is doing better—he takes the stairs easily and it isn’t long before he’s perched on the edge of his bed. When she’d changed the sheets, Ms. Adelaide had organized all the board games and books on one of the side tables. The kitten sleeps in the middle of the bed, right beside some fresh bandages. The intention is pretty clear.

Felix glances around like he just missed her hiding behind the door. “Where’s Ms. Ada?” 

“She often takes naps in the afternoon,” Sylvain explains. “And you’ve been keeping her busy lately.” He pauses. “Which isn’t your fault of course!” He pauses again. “Except you were the one who was stupid and got hurt. Felix, what the hell?”

“What? What did I do wrong now?”

“You’re stupid and reckless, that’s what! Why would you go running off into an obvious ambush?”

Felix goes red. “Look, I was angry, okay? We chased those bandits all up through Fraldarius territory, all the way up to the mountains here. I thought they might try to make a break for Sreng! I’ve been busting my ass for years trying to keep this place…” He cuts off immediately, and then folds his arms and looks away. 

Sylvain spins a little in place where he stands and puts those words back together in his head. He’d been surprised when Linus had reported bandit activity. The Fraldarius and Gautier territories had been so peaceful since the end of the war, more so than any other territory he knows of despite being the largest. But that just wasn’t right, was it?

“You’ve been keeping our territories safe for years,” Sylvain says, all statement and no question. “This entire time I thought you’d just...run off, but you were here.” Well, he had run off, but the fact that Felix had stayed so close, kept his territory safe, kept Sylvain’s territory safe, without request, without payment, without showing himself, was such a  _ Felix _ way of showing he cares that it’s making Sylvain’s chest ache. Felix hadn’t forgotten him at all. He’d been looking out for Sylvain this whole time, unnoticed. He doesn’t say anything now. Just sits with arms crossed. Found out.

Sylvain rubs at the back of his head. “We should...probably at least check on your stitches. Can you...shirt?”

Felix ducks his head a little but nods and uncrosses his arms. His water-wrinkled fingers work at the shirt buttons and he slips it off his shoulders and down his arms. The bandages aren’t as soggy as Sylvain had thought they might be. He kneels in front of Felix and unpeels the wrapping. The wound is...healed. It looks healed, feels healed when he runs his fingers across it—Felix shivers for some reason—and all that will be left will be some puckered white scars. Alright, the stitches are still there and a thin red line is visible, but that will disappear and the stitches will be gone in a few days. “I’m going to rebandage you now,” Sylvain says softly, reaching for the clean bandages. He stands up and then stoops, head hovering near Felix’s and hair flopping onto his shoulder. He’d apologize for that, but Felix hasn’t brushed his hair away so it must be bearable. Droplets of water still fall from Felix’s own hair and escape down his back, his arms, his chest. Sylvain swallows and begins wrapping the bandages around the wound. “Too tight?”

“It’s fine,” Felix says after a moment, voice oddly strangled. “Just get on with it.”

So Sylvain gets on with it. He tucks the end of the bandage away and runs fingers down Felix’s sides, checking that everything is secure. When he lifts his face, they’re nose to nose. Felix is wide-eyed for once, and doesn’t seem to have anything to say. 

He’s been here, the whole time. Watching. Keeping things safe. Why? Why didn’t he ever come back? Come home? 

“Why did you leave, Fe?” Sylvain whispers. “Was it me? Was it my fault?” 

Felix’s eyebrows scrunch. “I...it’s...it’s complicated.” He leans away and scoots up to the head of the bed. His hands catch at a lock of hair that’s come loose from the ribbon and he begins braiding it up again. “But no,” he says. “It wasn’t your fault. Don’t be so damn egotistical.” 

Sylvain lets out breath, and then clambers up onto the bed. “Stop braiding. I just fixed your hair, so don’t go ruining it.” 

“Braids are fine!” 

The wound is almost all healed. The moment the snow melts, Felix is gone. Again. And Sylvain might never see him again, except maybe when he learns that Felix really met his match this time and got himself killed. 

But leaving will be Felix’s decision. And it was his decision back then too. Sylvain can’t change that, no matter how much he’d like to. 

It’s complicated? What does he mean by that? Would it kill Felix to give Sylvain a straight answer, at least on this one single question? Because Sylvain still can’t shake the idea that it was his fault. He was the one who made it complicated, the one who gave Felix a reason to run. It has to be his fault, doesn’t it?

“Let me do your hair,” Sylvain offers, sounding more desperate than he meant to. “You always let me play with it before.” 

Felix moans and sighs but is actually fairly quick to lean forward and let Sylvain slide in behind him. Sylvain thinks he’d always secretly loved having his hair played with. He starts with one big braid up one side, enjoying the smooth slide of clean hair much more than the tangled mess he’d undone. 

“Hey Felix?” 

“Mmm?” 

He sounds a little sleepy. Sylvain bites back a grin, realizes Felix can’t see him, and just grins openly. “Come to Fhirdiad with me.” 

There’s a moment of silence. “Are you nuts? Fuck no!” 

“I’m not saying you have to go shake hands with Dimitri or anything,” Sylvain explains quickly. “But you don’t know where Leonie is and Fhirdiad is the best place to find out! There’ll be information on all the bandit activity and mercenaries for hire in all of Fódlan. We can go as soon as the roads are clear! You don’t have to see anyone, I swear. Unless you...you know...want to.”

Another moment of silence. “I’d like to see Ingrid. And Ashe. Does Annette still live in the capital?”

“Actually, she lives a little nearer Garreg Mach now. With Mercedes. But we could take a detour.” 

Again, silence. Then: “I’ll think about it.” 

It’s as good as a yes. Sylvain keeps smiling to himself as he does several small braids up the other side of Felix’s head, and then pulls the upper half of his hair into a neat little bun, tied with a ribbon. It leaves the rest of his hair flowing free, easy to play with, and Sylvain finds himself just running his fingers through, again and again. He doesn’t realize he’s put Felix to sleep until the other man overbalances and flops against Sylvain’s chest. Sylvain’s heart leaps. Not only has he secured more time before Felix goes running off on his own, but now Felix is dozing against him, warm and safe and…

And this is dangerous. The last time Sylvain let his heart leap like this, it fell and shattered, and over the same person no less. He can’t let himself get carried away. He can’t let himself want. It will only hurt more later. 

Perhaps the hurt will be worth it, though, he thinks as he settles against the headboard and gathers Felix up more comfortably against him. He doesn’t know how long he has before the roads clear. He has to take advantage of these last chances. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to spring this, but the lukewarm response to a story I worked my ass off for months has me feeling a little meh so I'm going to take a week or two to finish up some other stories and I promised a ficlet to someone who left a lovely review on another fic of mine and basically I just need to get my mojo back! This is also a huge thank you to people who have shown support so far!! and I hope you do all understand. Publishing this has been such a disappointment, but I will be back with another chapter very soon! I have this whole darn thing written after all, so even if not many people read it, it would be a shame not to publish. But yeah, I just wanted to let you all know and I'm very sorry. I just hate publishing a chapter inwardly groaning because I know like...not many people care. (Again, not to ignore those of who do! I adore you!) But inwardly groaning isn't how I want to be publishing a story, so I hope a little break will help that. I know that sounds selfish and I'm sorry but I also hope you get how I feel and are willing to wait longer than the usual week.  
> Geez this really does sound bad but I don't know how to make it sound better. I don't need pity or anything like that, this isn't a pity plea, just a heads up that I want to take a short time off and that I hope you understand!  
> Thank you!!!  
> (anyhoo i like messing with felix's hair the end)


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of soft knocking on his door, the sort anyone else would miss but if Felix has learned anything in his years as a squire for the Kingdom, it’s that the smallest sounds betray the greatest threats. So it’s not really his fault that Sylvain ends up with a blade to his throat the moment Felix wrenches the door open. 

“Goddess, Felix!” Sylvain hisses, and grabs hold of Felix’s wrist with a grip that burns. “Put the knife away.” 

Felix grumbles but stows the knife away beneath his mattress once more. He pulls his academy jacket—so rarely worn—from his dresser and slips it on over his sleep wear so he doesn’t feel so exposed. This is business. Sylvain isn’t a friend, not anymore, so no reason to treat him as such. Sylvain enters his room and shuts the door carefully behind him, still fully dressed. Probably coming back from a night on the town. “What the hell are you doing here?” Felix snaps, hands on his hips, and Sylvain grins lopsidedly as he rubs the back of his head sheepishly. He doesn’t seem to have got the ‘we’re not friends anymore’ memo if he’s trying to pull that expression on Felix now. You’d think he’d have cottoned on over the last few weeks but Felix might actually have to club him over the head several times before he gets the message. 

“Can I sleep here tonight?” 

Felix blinks, and when Sylvain doesn’t give up the joke, crosses his arms instead and turns away. “No.” That’s it. First thing tomorrow, he’s getting his sword and whacking Sylvain all around the head until he gets the message.

“Aw, please Felix?” Sylvain wheedles. “You’re going to cast me out into the cold like that?” 

Felix shoots him a withering look. “It’s a perfectly nice night out, first of all. Second, what’s wrong with your own room?” 

Third, why are you coming to me? Stop coming to me! You’re bothering me and I know I’ve made it perfectly clear that I’m not interested in friendships with anyone in this pointless place, rekindled or otherwise. Certainly not with you. Not. With. You. 

“Dimitri is in my room,” Sylvain says, rearranging his arms so his hands link behind his head. That’s a new thing for him. He never used to do that before Duscur. So many new things about Sylvain now, things that Felix hates, some because they’re actually awful—the number of girls he’s dated for one—and some because Felix doesn’t know them. 

He loathes the fact that he doesn’t know Sylvain like he used to. Things should just go back to how they were. Ingrid should be happy and gushy about her engagement to Glenn—something young Felix had found gross but now would give his life to restore—and Dimitri shouldn’t wake screaming from nightmares as the dead try to drag him back with them and Sylvain’s laugh should be genuine and his words just words instead of dripping with honey, and Felix should have his world again. But that’s never going to happen. 

And no matter how he tries to logic himself out of it, part of Felix blames Sylvain. Because Sylvain had always made things better. Little stories to fix the world. Of course, logically, Felix knows it’s unfair to expect Sylvain to fix everything that has gone wrong over the last few years. He can’t stop the Tragedy of Duscur. He can’t bring Glenn back. He can’t fix what’s broken in Dimitri. But it doesn’t stop that piece of Felix from being angry that he doesn’t. And mostly it can’t stop the way his chest aches with rage and maybe a bit of misery to see that Sylvain is no longer his Sylvain anymore. It hurts more each day. This new Sylvain, with the serial dating and hands laced behind his head as he casually breaks hearts and plays the fool whose only redeeming feature is his Crest? Felix sort of hates him, because he took the old Sylvain away. The one thing the Tragedy of Duscur might have let him keep, gone. Gone like everything else, his precious things turned to ash.

One day, soon, he knows, some of that anger, that heartbreak, that  _ fury _ is going to burst out of him because he knows Dimitri is not the only one slipping in that regard, but tonight isn’t the time. 

This time, he just sighs and focuses on getting Sylvain out of his room as quickly as possible. “Why the fuck is Dimitri in your room?” 

Sylvain takes some long, straight-legged steps, circling Felix’s room in easy circles. “Because I told him he should try asking a girl out and I guess she took things way more seriously than I anticipated. Also, she might have a knife. I’m a bit blurry on that point. But he’s hiding in my room so he doesn’t get stabbed in his sleep.” He sighs deeply and shakes his head, arms falling by his sides. “Our future king is a bit useless in some regards. But I couldn’t let royalty sleep on my floor. And...well...Dimitri is a pretty tall guy. And we’re both a little broad shouldered. Can’t really share one of these tiny beds, right?” 

Oh Saints. Is he being serious?

Sylvain turns his biggest, brightest, fakest smile on Felix, ridiculous clockwork boy. “So I thought, hey, there’s someone I used to share a bed with a lot, and he’s smaller than me…”

“I am  _ not _ small!” He isn’t. Even in their house, Ashe is significantly smaller than Felix is. And that Bergliez brat is tiny. So why the fuck is it that people look at him and think ‘small’? 

“Just smaller than me,” Sylvain soothes immediately. “Which isn’t hard. I’m tall. But I really don’t want to sleep on the floor and I thought maybe you’d be okay with letting me crash here.” 

Felix stares him down until the fake smile drains away. “Over my dead body.” 

Do you want to know the secret, Sylvain? Once upon a time, when we were kids, I think I loved you. It was something I simply grew up into being. But now? When I look at you and peer past that smile and see how much hatred for yourself you’re storing in there? It’s enough to break a heart I’m not sure I completely possess anymore. So why do you have to stand there reminding me of what I once loved? Why can’t you go back to your own damn room? Let Dimitri get stabbed. 

He has so many words that go left unsaid these days. Mostly to his father. But now to Sylvain. Words he can’t say, shouldn’t say. Mustn't say out loud. If he actually allows himself to start speaking what he thinks, the sudden torrent of words would probably drown the entire monastery.

Sylvain opens his mouth as if to go for another attempt at persuasion, but something in Felix’s expression must sap his confidence, because he laughs nervously, softly this time, resigned. It’s something much more genuine than anything else that has left his mouth that evening and it throws Felix off his game. Nervous laughter is not part of the flirting repertoire. “Yeah. I get it. It would be weird now that we’re...now that we’re older. I’ll just go to the library or something. The chairs there are comfy.” He smiles, and it isn’t clockwork this time. It’s the smile Felix recognizes, the smile he remembers. 

A smile that greeted him time after time that he would sneak into Sylvain’s bed himself.

Sylvain always fixed the world into how it ought to be. Spiders and thunder were not frightening. A blue flower could mean good luck. Now, Felix could almost believe that the library chairs are just that comfortable, the best place to sleep really, just because Sylvain tells him so. If he looks close, will he find in that smile the endless summers and playful winters, a glimpse of the boy Felix had loved, adored, bound his life to? 

He’s scared to look in case he doesn’t find what he so desperately needs. Proof that the Sylvain who was his still exists. 

“Well, g’night,” Sylvain says, and then pauses, waiting for Felix to react. But Felix doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything at all. So Sylvain moves towards the door and Felix watches him go, memories overlaying the sight of a child Sylvain, with wilder hair and a smile with gaps in it. “Sorry to bother you,” Sylvain says as a goodbye, and disappears back into the hallway. 

The door’s weight drags it shut. Felix groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. 

Forget his memories. Forget that which once was his. That was the past, precious as it is. Now is now. Share a bed with Sylvain? Like hell. And what sort of rumors would start being spread about if anyone found out? The whole concept was idiotic. 

Felix shrugs his jacket off, folds it, and puts it back in its place in his dresser. Then he lies in bed staring at the ceiling. 

Sylvain had never once told Felix to go back to his own bed. No matter who they might be now, the past hasn’t changed. 

He’d still loved Sylvain once, the calf love of a young boy still learning what that feeling was and then tumbling headfirst into it. Sparring in summer with the wind in the leaves and splashing in the chill waters of summer lakes. Lying still in the grass and feeling flowers being placed upon his face and wondering if maybe Sylvain would be okay with Felix asking to kiss him. Not having the courage to ask, in the end, and then he was out of chances.

Ugh.

Sylvain is dozing off in one of the library chairs when the pillow hits him in the face. He sputters and flails and nearly falls to the floor. Felix smirks and settles into the other chair nearby. The only other occupant is that kid from the Black Eagles house, the sleepy one. He doesn’t stir from where he’s fallen asleep on a table as Sylvain pulls the pillow into his lap and blinks at Felix. 

“What are you doing?” 

Felix tosses the second blanket his way before slipping off his boots and curling into the chair. The fire crackles nearby with a comforting, familiar sound. “What does it look like?” 

Sylvain stares at the pillow and the blanket. “Well, it looks like a pillow and a blanket, but why are you still here? You have a bed.” 

Felix shrugs and settles into a comfortable position. Actually, Sylvain had been right. These chairs aren’t bad. “I’m not sharing a bed with you. Because you probably still kick like crazy and drool. Just...consider this repayment.”

Sylvain frowns as he pulls the blanket over himself. His limbs are too long to curl into the chair the way Felix can, so his legs sprawl out long towards the fireplace. “Repayment?”

Felix shuts his eyes and turns his face into the coolness of the pillow. “Yes, repayment. Now shut up. I’m trying to sleep.” 

He sits there, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of Sylvain getting comfortable. 

“Thanks Felix,” Sylvain says at last, with the sort of certainty that means he knows Felix is still awake. Still knows him. 

The sudden swell of happiness in his chest isn’t a feeling Felix is used to anymore.

His Sylvain is still in there, somewhere, hidden beneath whatever the hell Margrave Gautier did in those four years he had to train his heir, beneath the fake grins and the incessant winking. He’s still there. 

A pity the exterior is now so damned annoying.

“Whatever,” Felix replies, and hopes Sylvain knows what he really means, because his own exterior can be sort of annoying too.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Felix wakes up hungry. And his feet are cold. Faerghus is so fucking cold, he doesn’t know why everyone doesn’t just migrate south…

There are arms crossed across his chest, and the chest he’s lying on goes gently up and down along to soft breathing. Felix tenses up, and then realizes by the cadence of the breath that it’s Sylvain. There are no lamps lit, and this far north, the light has faded from the sky. It’s nearly pitch black in the room and Felix has no idea what time it is. He could, of course, sit up and go find out, but that would wake Sylvain up, and Sylvain looks so ridiculously tired now that he’s old that Felix would feel bad. 

Not like they didn’t sleep all bundled together like this at the monastery sometimes, when Sylvain would steal his bed. Or on the campaign trail, when sleeping together just made things easier. Or as kids. Felix would sneak into Sylvain’s bed late at night so they could fall asleep holding hands. It had made him feel safe during thunderstorms, because Sylvain was older and taller and stronger, if not as good at sparring. But it had also made him feel better because Sylvain’s older brother had tried to kill him and if Miklan—the embodiment of evil to a young Felix—dared creep in during the night to try to steal Sylvain away again, then Felix would stab him with his dagger until Sylvain was safe again. Although Glenn had promised to be the better big brother and fend Miklan off himself, so it probably wouldn’t even come to that. 

So, all in all, Felix refuses to feel bad about settling back against Sylvain’s chest, because it’s not like it’s cuddling or anything stupid like that. It’s conserving space. 

And maybe it feels a little nice. A little like he remembers. 

He probably falls back asleep, because a thud from the side of the bed and clattering of something on the floor wakes him immediately. Sylvain too, who nearly breaks his nose on the back of Felix’s head when he sits up too fast. 

“Idiot,” Felix mutters, rubbing his head, and then, with the sixth sense he’s always had for these creatures, he nabs the black kitten off the side table before it can push any more of Sylvain’s board games to the floor. “Gotcha, you rascal.” He can’t see her in his hands, but she’s fuzzy and yowling and there. She quiets down when he lets her chew on one of his fingers. 

“Whab habbened?” Sylvain asks in the darkness. Felix moves back up the bed and lies down, prompting Sylvain to do the same. It’s not as warm as when they were sleeping pressed together, but it’s probably best the kitten helped them avoid the awkwardness of waking all cuddled up like that. 

“Just Mira,” he says, and then, quickly, “Yes, I named her Mira, if you already had a name that’s fine too but I’m calling her Mira.” 

“Thab’s a good nabe.” Saints, maybe he actually did break his nose. Felix reaches out, finds Sylvain’s face, and grips his nose. Sylvain yelps, but there’s no blood. 

Felix’s fingers linger on Sylvain’s face. Why does he have to dream of long passed days now, with Sylvain right here before him? It’s cruel. He draws his hand away and reaches back to check his hair. Sylvain had been doing it up for him, hadn’t he? Had Felix fallen asleep right on top of him? There’s a whole less braid and a lot more silky ribbon than he’s used to. “What the hell did you do to my hair?” 

“Dob’d worry, you’re sdill scary.” 

Felix can’t take him seriously when Sylvain is talking like that. He turns his face into a pillow and bites back a laugh. Sylvain seems to know what he’s doing anyways. 

“Shud ub. Your fauld.” 

“Mmm,” Felix hums. Saints, what wouldn’t he do to stretch this moment out, let it last forever. Just him and Sylvain in the safety of the dark, with Felix’s blood still buzzing with the memory of how they’d slept together curled into one person, a forever ago. Like this, he can pretend they really are in some far off land—no titles, no responsibilities—simply lying together waiting for the light. The future Felix dreamed of but could never bring to fruition.

Goddess, how he wishes. “I’ll go to Fhirdiad with you,” he whispers. “But that’s it. You understand? I won’t be coming back here again.” 

“I know.” Sylvain shuffles a little closer on the bed. “I know thad.” 

Felix nods, even if Sylvain can’t see it, and stirs his feet in the quilt atop the covers to keep his feet warm when he falls asleep this time. He’s still hungry, but he’s been hungry before. He’ll live. 

Food is relatively easy to find. This time with Sylvain he’ll never have again.

***

“So what am I supposed to do now?” Felix demands over dinner, an affair between him and Sylvain while Ms. Ada does the laundry in a cleared corner of the kitchen. As the only room in the mansion with a constant fire, everyone is finding a way to do their work here. Milo keeps popping back in for warmth as he settles the horses for the night. Only Linus had taken a lamp up to the library with him, muttering with an open book in his free hand. 

Sylvain lifts a brow. “We wait for the snow to melt and then go to Fhirdiad. Thought we agreed.”

Felix sighs and drinks some soup straight from the bowl. So good. “Before that,” he clarifies. “Now I’m healed.”

“You’re not healed,” Ms. Ada and Sylvain answer practically simultaneously and Felix groans. 

“I’m healed enough I can’t just lie in bed all day!” He shoots Sylvain a dirty look. “Have I mentioned how stupid it is your training grounds are all outdoors?” 

Sylvain sips some soup from his spoon like a real noble. “I think so. But even if they were inside, you’re not allowed to train. The healer said you had to take it easy for two weeks.” The next sip is just as discreet.

It’s so refined that it’s annoying. Felix glares and slurps from the bowl as obnoxiously as he can. Sylvain glances over at him and bites back a smile with a small shake of his head. “Jackass,” Sylvain tells him, but it’s pretty fondly. He puts his spoon aside and decides to eat Felix’s way instead. Slurp. “We’ll find something for you to do.”

Ms. Ada tries to help. “What do you do in your spare time?”

“Train,” Felix and Sylvain answer together. 

She frowns and begins folding a pair of Milo’s trousers. The set of her shoulders betrays that she already knows the answer. “Likes?” 

Sylvain meets Felix’s eyes and grins. The answer is simultaneous. “Swords.” 

Ms. Ada sighs and stands there, fiddling with Milo’s trousers. “Ms. Adelaide,” Sylvain says, taking pity on her, “You never knew him when he got older. When Felix got up in the morning, he wanted to train. When he had a spare second of time, he used it to train. He walked out of lectures to go train instead. He used to train until I was ordered to literally pull him to bed by our professor. I bet he’s just gotten worse since he escaped my positive influence.” 

Felix wishes that was an exaggeration, but he can really only shrug and nod. He was bad back then, and he’s worse now. When his crew has made camp for a couple of days, he’s liable to get up before dawn to practice sword forms and not realize he’s missed the entire day and three meals until it gets too dark to see. There’s just something about stepping into that familiar training routine that calms his mind and lets him focus on something other than being scared, being angry, being so  _ incredibly _ angry. He doesn’t need to think or worry or remember. He doesn’t even need to be himself. He is just a blade. Only a blade. 

So many years, and he’s still just a sword. 

He wishes he could be only a blade now, so he could shake away the feel of Sylvain’s body pressed against his. He feels himself frowning again. He doesn’t like the way his thoughts have been travelling. It’s just going to make things harder in the end.

“We’ll find something you can do tomorrow,” Sylvain promises with a kick to Felix’s leg under the table. “And it shouldn’t be too long until the snow melts.” 

Felix makes a face but just focuses on finishing his soup. 

Ms. Ada checks his bandages again upstairs, wraps him up, and orders him back into bed. This time, she finds some old sleep clothes from Sylvain’s father that fit Felix fairly well. Felix changes and then wanders through the open door to Sylvain’s room. The fire in here is lit now and Sylvain is washing up, cloth scrubbing at his face while droplets of water fall onto his bare chest and back, dripping all the way down to his trousers. He smiles at Felix and sends him a wink. Felix glances away quickly and his eyes catch at a mirror in the small washroom. He wanders over and studies his reflection by the lamplight. The cuts and bruises he may have received in his fight with the bandits are fading and healing, leaving his skin just as pale and brittle looking as ever. He still doesn’t show signs of a beard, which is annoying, mostly because Leonie teases him about his inability to ever grow one, but he likes how Sylvain did his hair. It’s not as wild as the braids or as uptight as some of his other hairstyles. It’s almost refined how it’s pulled back up top, but the way his hair lies loose down his back and the tiny rows of braids on the one side remind him almost of how Petra used to wear her hair. 

“Admiring yourself?” Sylvain asks right behind him, and Felix thinks he does a good job of hiding how he almost jumps out of his skin. Sylvain reaches out and pulls Felix to him so they’re staring into the mirror side by side. “I did a great job!” he declares with a beaming smile. Felix fights to get out of his grasp and rushes for the door. 

“You did an okay job! Goodnight!” He slams his door shut and then goes to close the doors to the hallway as well. There. Sylvain-proofed. Except he doesn’t have a key and Sylvain could get in by simply turning a doorknob but that’s not the point. 

Felix sighs and climbs onto the bed. Mira is currently exploring Sylvain’s desk, kicking papers all about, and Felix isn’t inclined to fetch her anytime soon. 

He needs to get Sylvain out of his head, but it’s already hard enough when he’s all the way across the country. Now Sylvain is next door and his skin is warm and his smile is sweet and his eyes are more tired but just as big and emotional and Felix can still remember perfectly how wonderfully safe he’d felt in Sylvain’s arms. Safe and warm and cared for. 

Felix groans and rolls over to bury his face in a pillow. Why did he leave? Sylvain wants to know why he left? 

Because eight years ago, Felix realized that he wasn’t ever getting his ridiculous happy ending. 

“Gah!” Felix drags the blanket with him as he gets up from the bed and nabs a lamp from the side table to bring over to the desk. Mira has really managed to get things out of order, so Felix just grabs the first packet of papers he finds. Wheat exports. Great. But numbers still make sense, even after running around as a mercenary for so many years, and he saves Sylvain’s pen and ink—before the kitten can knock them down—to start circling places that don’t add up. Claude, you sly bastard...House Bergliez would happily agree to these terms without noticing the discrepancies in the second clause that allow for Almyra to raise tariffs by ten percent after five years. Not that House Bergliez would feel much strain from that, but that one sly little move has Felix pouring through the documents relating to Almyra looking for more. He doesn’t trust Claude worth the dirt off his boot, but he’s really learning to respect the guy in terms of being a devious bastard. Tiny details that would give him an edge in imports and exports should he need them, in case of drought or war or that potato production problem Sylvain is also trying to deal with. Little things he could pull out at any time and point to in their trade agreements as a condition everyone agreed to. It almost makes Felix want to scrap his investigation and let Almyra get away with it for the sheer gall, but that’s not what Sylvain would do so Felix won’t do it either. 

The lamp does eventually run out of fuel and he can’t just light a fire in his palm so Felix grabs Mira and rolls into bed. He’ll have to thump Sylvain a couple of times on the back of the head for missing those numbers. Or maybe give the poor guy a break. No wonder he looks exhausted, if this is what he’s stuck doing for a living. 

Maybe Sylvain wants to drop all this shit and become a mercenary too, Felix thinks, a little giddy, to himself, and then yawns and burrows into the blankets until he finds a comfortable space to sleep.

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of knocking on a familiar door, and it’s a familiar sleepy face that greets him. “What now?” Felix groans. He hasn’t even bothered to bring the dagger with him this time. 

“I may have put myself in a bit of danger,” Sylvain confesses. It speaks to the number of times he’s done this now that Felix just rolls his eyes and lets him in. “Sleep on the floor, you moron,” he orders, but that’s just protocol at this point. 

The others in their hallway don’t even question it anymore. Sylvain did something stupid and Felix saves him. That’s sort of how it goes. Ingrid might get after them for causing a scandal when they both walk out of the same room in the morning, albeit Sylvain an hour or two behind Felix because he's not a training fanatic, but there’s not much of a scandal to cause. Everyone has been begged sanctuary at least once when Sylvain got himself into lady trouble. Felix is just the one who repeatedly puts up with it. 

Maybe there would be a bit more scandal if everyone knew Sylvain slides right under the covers when Felix clambers back into bed, but none of them ever have to find out. Felix had caved after an hour of Sylvain lying on the floor that first night he let Sylvain actually sleep in his room, and Sylvain takes full advantage of his opportunity to be so close to Felix, each and every time. He’s not quite sure what made Felix change his mind—maybe it was Sylvain’s endless whining about how hard the floor is—but here he is, in the bed. Still a little amazed about it, actually. 

Felix curls himself into a little ball, back pressed to the wall. “Go to sleep, idiot,” he murmurs, sounding almost fond, and his eyes close tight. It only takes him a minute to be asleep once more. A real soldier. Sylvain curves himself around Felix, head pillowed on his arm, and admires the dark fan of eyelashes against pale skin, the strands of hair that have escaped the bun and lay errant across his face, the slight furrow in his brow present even in sleep. Sylvain rubs a gentle finger there and smiles when the frown smooths away. He can’t study Felix like this when the other is awake. He gets cussed at and then a boot is thrown his way. But damn does Felix look handsome after four years apart. Even when he’s scowling, which is always. Felix does take after his father with his hair color and general face shape, which is a fact Sylvain is sure Felix hates. Glenn had also inherited that hair color, but his eyes had also been the grey of their father’s, where Felix has their mother’s tawny brown—Sylvain is painfully relieved that Felix doesn’t see a reflection of his brother each time he looks in a mirror. 

No, he needs to stop going down that road. Thinking about Glenn will only start the dark journey of thoughts and Sylvain needs to take this short time he has before he sleeps to enjoy this closeness, this familiarity. 

If this were ten years ago, Felix would probably be climbing on Sylvain in some manner or other, possibly waving a weapon because the Fraldarius house has some weird practices regarding kids and swords. Sylvain aches for those days, has dreams of hide and seek and forest ponds. Sylvain misses the games. He misses Dimitri and Ingrid. And he misses the days that Felix didn’t hate him. 

Sylvain sighs and curls a little closer around Felix. Yes, Felix hates him, or at least loathes him with a passion. He’ll let Sylvain sleep in his bed, but that’s a magic gone come morning. Outside from this, Felix just trains. Sylvain gets exhausted watching. Felix spars with students. He spars with the knights. He spars with the Professor, who gives him a judging look when she finds Sylvain leaning on the wall just outside. And when there are no more opponents? Felix spars with the air, doing the same exercises over and over and over. If Sylvain walks in? Well, they still spar, but it’s accompanied by cutting remarks about the girls he’s been dating and how damned insatiable he is. It sort of hurts. 

Not that it isn’t entirely deserved. 

Don’t worry Felix, I hate myself too.

Felix is frowning again. It’s so cute, even though Sylvain knows Annette would have a little panic attack at the thought of wrinkles and get her little kit of creams and colors out because she’d done that to him three days ago. For a girl who could kill him in a second with a snap of her little magic fingers, she’s wonderfully fascinated by beauty products. Sylvain needs to go home sometime and ask his mother for something to gift to her. Maybe it will be distracting enough to give Ingrid the chance to run before yet another color of lipstick is dabbed on for testing. In the dark, Sylvain rubs Felix’s frown away again and smiles wide when Felix mumbles in his sleep and fists a hand in the blankets. Like he said, cute. 

But he should sleep. He’s supposed to start learning white magic tomorrow and according to Mercedes, it’s sort of exhausting. Maybe Byleth can accept he’s more of a horse and lance kind of guy? Please? 

Another mumble from Felix. A dream? Sylvain curls himself around Felix as tight as he can without touching, and hopes his body is enough of a shield to keep the nightmares at bay. 

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

“Hey.” 

Sylvain doesn’t open his eyes. He refuses to let Felix poke him awake every morning until they travel to Fhirdiad. 

“Hey.” Another poke. And another. And then Felix sighs and Sylvain watches through one half-open eye as he sits cross-legged beside Sylvain’s bed, staring out across the messy room. He doesn’t seem to have the intention to leave at any point soon. Sylvain snuggles into the pillow and takes the opportunity to sneak just a little bit more sleep. He wakes with the sun just a little bit brighter through the windows and Felix still sitting by the side of his bed. Sylvain smiles and reaches a hand out to tangle his fingers in the loose hair spilling down to Felix’s shoulders. 

“Good morning,” he says, throat dry, and Felix seems to stiffen, but he doesn’t even bother pulling away. Sylvain knew it—Felix completely loves having his hair played with, though he probably wouldn’t admit it in the depths of Hell. “What’s got you up so bright and early?” Sylvain asks, and Felix tips his head back so they can make eye contact. 

“You were always very good at writing and all that stuff,” Felix tells him, which throws Sylvain for a bit of a loop. A compliment? From Felix? “But you’re awful at math,” Felix finishes, and, okay, there’s the world back in its proper place. 

“Why do you care if I’m bad at math?” Sylvain pushes at Felix’s head so he can keep stroking his hair. Which is...not safe. At all. But they both enjoy it so Sylvain will allow himself to be endangered. Felix lifts a hand full of papers and shakes them with a slight rustling noise akin to fall leaves. 

“Are those from my desk?” 

“Yeah. From that trade agreement with Almyra. Claude is giving you the run around. Thought you should know.” 

Saints. Sylvain takes his blanket with him when he slides out of bed and lands with an ‘oof’ at Felix’s side. “Show me?” 

He really isn’t good at math and his brain is still fuzzy with sleep, but Felix speaks with confidence as he points out details about tariffs and similar details that had completely flown by Sylvain when he’d looked over the trade agreements. “It’s nothing major,” Felix admits while Sylvain yawns, “But if you let Claude get away with it now, you know he’s going to do it again.” 

Which is right. It’s totally right, and Sylvain is an idiot for not having noticed any of these discrepancies. He folds his head down into his knees. His hands are beginning to shake. “Dimitri is counting on me to catch that sort of stuff.” 

“Well, now you did,” Felix replies primly, and taps the pile of paper on the floor to get it all in line again. “You can write everything up all proper and give it to him.” 

But Sylvain is too busy stressing over the number of mistakes he may have made in the past and completely missed. Did those mistakes go unnoticed? Or was Dimitri just taking pity on him by not pointing them out and letting him go on thinking he’s actually doing a decent job? What has happened as a result of Sylvain’s inadequacy? Goddess, they’ve practically already shook on this damn trade deal! What if they go ahead and really  _ do _ shake on it while Sylvain is trapped up here and then everything is set in stone and there’s nothing Sylvain can do because he already approved this damn thing himself and—

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe...

“Sylvain? Sylvain, calm down.” Felix’s hands on his shoulders, on his face, hauling him upright until he’s staring into Felix’s eyes. Which are...wide. Concerned? The shock of it is enough to force one wretched gasp down into his lungs. His head clears a bit. Oh. He had a panic, didn’t he? “Sylvain,  _ breathe _ .” Felix takes in a deep breath and lets it go. Again. Again. Gets Sylvain breathing with him. “There we go.” Felix stares at him with his head tilted to the side as Sylvain continues to breathe on his own. “Since...since when does that happen?” 

The panicking? You should have seen me the day you disappeared. But Sylvain doesn’t say that. Doesn’t say that sometimes this just all gets to be way too much, and then the panic is there, inescapable, wrenching at his lungs and his stomach and his brain until it’s all he can do but sit and shake and try not to drown. No, he doesn’t say that. He just shrugs. Felix ‘hmmphs’ and settles against Sylvain’s side, a warm and reassuring weight. 

“Did you think it was going to be like this?” Felix asks after a few minutes with a slight gesture to the pile of paperwork. He doesn’t need to elaborate. But Sylvain doesn’t want to answer the question. 

He deflects. “What’s it been like? Travelling? Actually seeing changes? All I do is legislate them while sitting on my ass. Do you travel all over Fódlan?”

Felix shrugs. “We get around, I suppose. And you are making changes. Not always easy ones. When nobles dissolve their houses and the land falls under Faerghus, it’s a difficult transition for the people who live there. Sometimes they need a new currency, and they have to get used to new tax regulations as well. If they’re Empire folks, they hate falling under Kingdom rule. I see effigies, sometimes, of Dimitri or Byleth. They blame them for everything that happened, for the soldiers they lost, the damage done in the fighting. And bandits tend to get bad when an area is in turmoil. If it weren’t for other nobles maintaining their titles and keeping some form of stability in the region, I think the whole Empire might have revolted.” He scoffs. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Dimitri owes a lot to von Aegir. He might be a ditz, but people like him.” He pauses, then sighs. “Hell,  _ I _ like von Aegir. And the little one, the second son. Bergliez. Does good diplomatic work. What was his name?” Felix snaps a couple of times, trying to remember. 

“Caspar,” Sylvain supplies. 

“Thanks, yes. I always just thought of those two as the angry one and the sleepy one.” 

Sylvain smiles weakly. That’s fair. He hadn’t ever interacted with Caspar and Linhardt until very late in the war, when Edelgard’s army began defecting beneath her. Felix had been...very distant from a lot of people by that point. It’s not a surprise he hadn’t really taken them in. Actually, Sylvain is surprised he remembers Ferdinand enough to like him. He thinks he remembers Felix saying something once, about how likeable Ferdinand was. Earnest, he’d said, which was an odd quality for Felix to admire.

Felix waves the whole matter away. “Anyway, half the country would have starved if Count Bergliez hadn’t supplied wheat to those who hadn’t managed good harvests. I know he still sends wheat up this way, but that’s been an agreement between our families forever.” He turns his head towards Sylvain and tilts it to the side. “Given we had a three-way war, things are not terrible. They’re not even bad. And what noble houses are left? Von Aegir. Bergliez. Goneril. Gloucester. More that I can’t remember right now. I’d imagine all their lands will fall under the Commonwealth of Faerghus within the next fifteen years.”

“Gautier,” Sylvain reminds him. “Fraldarius.” 

Felix stumbles over that reminder. “Ah. Yes. Well…” He clears his throat. “I thought my intention was pretty clear when I left. You are in charge of Fraldarius lands. If you wish to consolidate under the Gautier name, you have every right.” He stands so suddenly Sylvain is surprised he doesn’t sway and fall when he takes a few steps towards the door separating their rooms. 

“I couldn’t,” Sylvain calls after him, still sitting on the floor with the blanket tucked all around him. 

Felix doesn’t look back. Just grabs the doorframe and stands there. “Why not?” 

Given the chance to say it aloud, Sylvain suddenly feels very silly and small. “No...no reason.” 

“Why not?” Felix repeats, squeezing the doorway tight. 

Sylvain lowers his chin to his knees and hugs them tighter to his body. Shuts his eyes, like that will make this easier. “Because I hoped you would come back.” 

No response. For the longest time. And then: “Come look at these papers with me. I have a few more things to show you. And then you can write a letter politely refusing the trade agreement. Alright?” When Sylvain doesn’t respond, Felix adds, “I’ll be playing with Mira when you’re ready.” His soft footsteps on bare feet barely sound as he continues into his own room. Sylvain stays curled up and safe for the longest time, maybe even falls back asleep for a few minutes, before he finally stands and stretches and brings the blanket with him as he goes to be tutored in political math. 

***

The fact Felix creates his own way of passing the days by digging through Sylvain’s pile of papers is a little bit funny, at least to Sylvain. He seems to derive some weird glee over finding a mistake in a document and marking it down with the pen Sylvain lets him borrow. Sylvain just thinks of it as Felix arguing with numbers, since there’s no one else in the mansion for him to really bother. As the days pass and his wound heals—there’s a tense hour where Ms. Adelaide removes the stitches, but then it’s all over—he begins wandering the mansion some more, taste-testing for Ms. Adelaide, joking with Milo, and not terrorizing Linus. And then returning to the stacks and stacks of paper with a look of actual contentment. 

“Remember, I pretended I couldn’t read these past few years,” he explains when Sylvain shows a slight bit of confusion. “I suppose this is sort of fun because of that.” 

“And I thought I was the one who was good at playing the idiot.” 

Felix snorts. “Except the very moment someone called you out on it. I think we were all a bit more fooled by your disgusting skirt chasing, but you never played being an idiot very well, Sylvain. Or at least, not to me.”

“Glad you are still as enthralled by my attempts at wooing.” 

“Trust me, your true attempts at wooing were a lot…” Felix goes pink and shuts up. Sylvain almost wants to press him for it. What was my wooing like? Did I even properly woo you? 

So I didn’t just come out of nowhere and ask you for forever? You knew what I was doing, right? I was trying to woo you for months. I’d been accidentally flirting with you for years. 

It doesn’t count as flirting when he stays the night in Felix’s bed, does it? It’s just more convenient. All the papers are in here.

Felix doesn’t seem to mind, so Sylvain will let himself slip a little. He sleeps better with Felix safe beside him, and he needs that sleep to keep up with the amount of work they get done during those oddly frenzied days of speeches and numbers and sandwiches left half-eaten on their plates. Sylvain can’t remember feeling so excited about politics since he and Dimitri and the others were first planning their wonderful new world. Except Felix’s absence isn’t a great hole in his chest this time, so maybe it’s even better. 

Weird that Felix, who scorned any sort of education that wasn’t related to battle, would be the one to get Sylvain excited about long division again. The hours pass easily with their heads close together, thighs touching, pouring over papers scattered into purposeful piles on the floor. It makes Sylvain think Felix could have actually made a decent commander if he’d been treated as the Fraldarius heir. He’d simply never been raised with the expectation he’d be the one making decisions. Because he makes them now, when talking about radish crops and how future noble lands should be transitioned into the Commonwealth, taking currency and current exports into consideration. They spend hours arguing over what type of potato would best be grown in the western fields, and then hours of being moody about it before Felix tosses his hands up and declares, “Fine, red potato it is!” and Sylvain whoops in triumph. They both collapse laughing over how stupid it all had been, and meetings in the capital had never been so fun.

Sometimes, somehow, when it’s gotten late and everyone else has gone to bed, going over documents winds around to reminiscing about their childhood. And then, gradually, a few days later, the loss of it. 

“My father was in Duscur too, you know?” Felix mutters one night as the lamp burns low. His pen doodles lazy patterns on the bare backs of documents. “Well, the ‘Shield of Faerghus’, of course he was. But he wasn’t anywhere near the royal family when it happened. He just found Dimitri afterwards. Probably walked right over Glenn’s body to reach him.” 

“Felix, that’s not fair,” Sylvain tells him softly. He’s stretched out on Felix’s bed. The numbers started giving him a headache an hour ago. “You don’t know that.”

Felix glances up at Sylvain with an eyebrow raised. “No. I don’t. But he was sure fine with neglecting his other son so he could raise up the prince. My father practically lived in Fhirdiad after Duscur, all so he could perform his honorable duty to the royal family.” He looks away, and then turns his head to rest it against the top of the desk. His bare feet swing back and forth, scuffing against the carpet. With his head turned that way, Sylvain can’t see his expression. “I never begrudged Dimitri for what my father did and I know this was childish, but whenever Dimitri called my father ‘his second father’, it just made me want to scream. I’d wanted my father. I wanted Glenn. I wanted someone who could tell me what to do, now that I was heir to the House Fraldarius. But no. Just me.” He stops doodling and sets the pen down. “I sound pathetic. What am I complaining for? Rich noble feeling sad for himself…”

“Shush,” Sylvain admonishes. He carefully doesn’t wake the kitten as he shifts in the bed. “You never told me any of this stuff, Felix.” 

Felix mumbles something and then says, “Wasn’t important. You had your own stuff going on and then I was...I was fighting and then we were at school and I didn’t really want to talk to you anymore.” 

“Ouch.”

“Well, you were being an idiot. Girls, girls, girls, and pretending to be so stupid I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as you.” 

Sylvain studies the defeated figure sitting at the desk. Yeah, he had been about girls, girls, girls and acting stupid. It was his own defense mechanism. If Felix had spent their years apart mourning his brother and training, then Sylvain had been learning how very useful it was to hide your assets. The girls, the girls...he has no excuse for that. It had been cruel, how he’d treated them, waiting to prove they were just as depraved as he was, only after a Crest. But the girls had also fed into his image as a good-for-nothing airhead who nobody should expect anything from, and that had been just fine. 

“You completely chewed me out over that one time, if I remember correctly,” Sylvain says, wincing. He doesn’t like to remember that fight. 

“I guess I did,” Felix replies, not lifting his head.

A pause, broken by the crackle of the fireplace. “I should have come and seen you,” Sylvain says. “When we learned about Duscur, the first thing I should have done was get on a horse to find you. But my father…” 

“You father was an utter prick who can burn,” Felix replies with a passion, head finally rising. “But it’s alright. Ingrid...Ingrid came to visit. The once. About Glenn. We had very different ways of mourning. She saw his death as heroic. I became a sword.”

It’s an odd enough statement that it makes Sylvain pause. “You’re a sword?”

Felix nods. “A very good one. It turns out if you take a lot of sadness and...and anger, you can take a kid and…” His face contorts as he tries to figure out the right words. “You can make him a weapon instead.” 

“...so you’re a sword?”

Now, Felix huffs with a touch of good humor. “I train, I fight, I train, I fight. The two things I’m good at right? It’s because...because it’s easier to put everything else away, when I’m a sword.” He frowns a little. “I don’t feel things as much.” 

That’s still a really weird thing to say. “I should have come,” Sylvain says, wishing he could have gotten there before Felix began to forge his emotions away.

Felix shrugs. “I could have come to you.” 

They should have come for each other. But they screwed that up, didn’t they? And got screwed up for it. Sylvain forces a smile. “Yeah, I can promise you that being taught how to be an heir because your idiot brother just ran off to be a bandit? Not much fun either.” 

Felix snorts. “So we were both teenage idiots. Oxymoron.” 

Sylvain shuffles around until his legs are underneath the blankets. It’s cozier this way. “I’m not sure we ever got smarter.” 

Felix lifts his head and laughs, soft and brief. Not a sword. “True.” 

Sylvain smiles and watches the lamplight slowly flicker and die. There’s no more need for words. That’s enough for tonight. After a while, there’s a shifting of the mattress as Felix gets in on the other side. A cooing as the kitten is coddled. And then cold feet shoved against Sylvain’s legs. He’s getting used to it. 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of uneven cobbles and a roundabout way, the back alleys of the village of Garreg Mach. 

These are the back alleys Sylvain has made his own. But tonight, it is not just him. 

There is a small tavern in a part of town not frequented by students or, more importantly, professors. Seteth would have a heart attack if he knew about it, probably. Felix is just as suspicious as Sylvain leads him through the narrow streets hung with lanterns. “I didn’t actually think we’d be going into town to eat. What’s wrong with the dining hall?” 

Sylvain throws a grin back over his shoulder. He finally manages to get Felix out for dinner, and he’d waste it on the dining hall surrounded by all the other students? Hell no. “This will be better,” he promises, and Felix huffs but falls silent after that. 

Soon enough, they reach the tavern, and Felix winces automatically before realizing there’s not much noise to wince over when Sylvain opens the door. 

It’s dark, and small, but the tables are clean and the woman at the bar waves when she sees Sylvain. Sylvain immediately turns to get Felix’s reaction. He’s taken a half dozen girls here, but it’s so much more important that Felix finds it at least suitable enough to stay for dinner. Felix nods as he looks around at the scant number of occupied tables. “It’s quiet.” 

That’s a glowing recommendation coming from him. Sylvain breathes a sigh of relief and leads Felix to his favorite table, the one in the back corner that feels extra cozy. He considers pulling the seat back and then considers how long it would take to extract Felix’s dagger from his ear and decides against it. He just pats Felix on the back as he passes him. “I’ll go get drinks. And order food. Don’t worry, I know what you’ll want.” He feels Felix’s eyes on him while he approaches the bar, but when he glances back, Felix has sat down and is staring at the wall, immobile. Nervous? Angry? He’s so hard to read.

Sylvain flashes a grin at the barmaid, who has seen that grin used on enough girls by now to not buy it at all. She rolls her eyes and smirks. “Another hot date?” 

“What?” Sylvain blinks, looks over his shoulder at Felix, and blinks again. “Um…” No, this is a dinner between friends, nothing more. Friends, friends, friends, but he hates that now he’s going to be thinking about it all night. About what it would be like if he could just grin and say, “Yeah. I’m a lucky guy.” Goddess, he needs to get his head on straight. “He’s my best friend,” he tells the barmaid, and smiles a little more sincerely. “So can I get two pints? Actually, maybe like one and a half pints. Can you water one down a little? He doesn’t drink much. But please don’t tell him it’s watered. And can I get one of the Sunday specials, medium rare, and potato soup for me?” He realizes he’s been drumming his fingers against the bar incessantly and now she’s staring pointedly at them. “Sorry,” he mutters, and clasps his hands behind his back. “Did you get all that? Need to write it down?”

“I got it,” she says, mouth raised in a little half grin. 

“You got the medium rare bit?” 

“Yes. And the part about watering the ale. And your soup. Why so tense?” 

Because this one matters. It’s the awful truth that springs to the front of his mind immediately. Dinner with Felix means so much more than the meals spent here with girls he was using as a fleeting distraction. Dinner with Felix is something he’s had to work at for months to earn, and if he screws it up, there isn’t another Felix down the street he can charm in an instant. He might not get another chance with Felix at all. 

So yeah. “This matters.” 

Sylvain brings the ale to the table himself, careful to make sure Felix gets the watered one. Felix lifts a brow at the inclusion of alcohol but takes a sip anyways. “Not bad.” 

“The food is even better,” Sylvain promises, and then grins when he actually looks across the table at Felix. “You got a little something…” 

“Hmm.” Felix rubs at his bottom lip, and completely misses the bit of foam in the upper left corner of his mouth. “Good?” 

“No. It’s...no, you missed again. Still no. Felix, just...come here…” Sylvain leans across the table, ready to wipe the foam away with his thumb. Felix actually flinches away and scrubs a sleeve across the entire lower half of his face. Sylvain sits back down, trying to ignore how much that flinch had hurt. “Yeah. You’re good now.” 

Felix hmmphs. Sylvain sighs. 

How many girls has he brought here before now? (Maybe a guy or two?) Too many. Too many to keep track of. And he hurt every single last one of them. He can’t blame Felix—or Ingrid or Dimitri—for looking at him and seeing something awful. Insatiable. 

Good-for-nothing then, good-for-nothing now. 

They sit in an uneasy silence until the barmaid brings their food out. Sylvain always gets the soup, since everything else has either too many vegetables or too much meat. Felix stares at the cut of roast beef like it’s the second coming of Seiros. 

“Won’t find meat this good in the dining hall,” Sylvain says, trying on a smile and finding it fits. “Eat up.” 

It’s times like these Sylvain still sees the little boy he grew up with. Felix drops his usual scowl and actually looks somewhat carefree as he tries to maneuver his knife and fork to eat with minimal mess. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t hold polite conversation like Sylvain’s usual dining partners, but that turns out to be okay because their silence is so much more authentic. Sylvain tips extra after the meal and the two of them head back out into the night. Felix is still quiet, but his footsteps seem a little wobbly. Even with the pint watered, he had way more to drink than he probably should have. Whoops. 

Sylvain is too tall to slip under Felix’s shoulder, so he sidles up next to him and puts an arm around his waist. Felix makes a small sound of protest, but nothing more than that. Felix’s waist is even slimmer to touch than it looks. He’s working himself way too hard. Maybe Sylvain will mention something to the Professor, make sure she’s monitoring Felix’s health along with the ten thousand other things she’s currently handling. Sylvain winds their path through the backroads, because he knows Felix would die of embarrassment if anyone saw him tipsy like this. No clue how they’re going to handle the monastery itself. Maybe Felix will have sobered up a little by then. The guard at the gate isn’t exactly perceptive.

“Sylvain?” Felix’s words are clear and sharp, not slurred at all. He stops, and Sylvain swings one leg out long before falling back beside him, staring down into Felix’s upturned face. 

“Yes?” 

“I have something on my mind. And I want to say it now.” 

Sylvain blinks. Oh, of course. What had it been Felix said earlier today? 

_ “You’re always…” _ And then he’d backed off.  _ “Maybe I’ll tell you later. Maybe I won’t.” _

And then Sylvain had dragged him out to dinner, built on the idea they could eat together and Felix could share his super secret opinion if he chose to, but Sylvain hadn’t ever actually expected it to work out that way. “Wow. Okay. I’m...is this just because you’re drunk?” 

Felix scowls at him and removes Sylvain’s hand from his waist. “Not drunk. This is because Jeralt was murdered and we have imposters living in the monastery and the boar is acting worse by the day and if I don’t say it now, I might not get the chance.” 

That’s a grim summation of their situation. “Okay. I’m listening then.” Sylvain crosses his hands behind his head and strolls around so he’s facing Felix on the street. “I believe the sentence began with ‘You’re always.’

“Fine.” Felix’s face is set in its customary scowl once more, and once he starts speaking, he doesn’t stop, just keeps going in his worst sarcastic tone. “You’re an idiot and you’re going to get yourself killed one of these days and I won’t do a damn thing to stop it. You’re always throwing yourself into danger like that will somehow make you a better person but it doesn’t. Helping friends out? Is that how you justify it?” He spits out a laugh like it’s acid. “That’s not a little give and take. You head out onto the battlefield like you’re looking to die, but it doesn’t mean you’re any better a person once the fight is over.”

Sylvain stops in place and gapes. Felix glares.

“You come up with that now or have you been holding that in a while?” Sylvain asks finally, trying to make a joke of it, but a joke takes two and Felix doesn’t cooperate.

“You hate yourself. I know you do.” Felix raises a brow, face cold like stone. “Anyone who values their life would act smarter on the battlefield. Because if you put yourself in danger to save my life, you know you get nothing valuable out of it. A meal? Some candies? That doesn’t mean I’ll be saving  _ your _ life next time and you know it. Because you’d be okay with dying.” 

“I don’t want to die!” Sylvain protests. Felix makes a sweeping motion with his arm to brush that away. 

“Well then you damn sure don’t care if you get hurt! And it’s just the same with these...these...girls! These girls that you take out!” His fists are clenched tight, his voice beginning to rise to a yell now, something that would never happen if he hadn’t been drinking. He’s angry now. Not sarcastic. Not annoyed. Angry. “It’s pathetic! How many women are you going to throw yourself at before you’re satisfied? You don’t love them, and they’ll never even know the real you because I’m not sure the real you even exists anymore!” He fists his hands in his hair, yanking it out of the careful bun. He stumbles backwards when Sylvain tries to approach. “Honestly, at this point I wonder how much masochistic pleasure you get out of having girl after girl reject you for being an asshole! Or maybe you just want the whole world to see you as an idiot with a Crest, hide everything about yourself that was ever good. You can’t get enough, can you? You’re just determined to hurt yourself any way you can and I’m sick of it!”

“Well you don’t have to watch!” Sylvain shoots back, crossing his arms tight across his chest. Thank the Goddess he took Felix out tonight. He can’t imagine having this fallout in the middle of the dorms. 

Felix narrows his eyes and almost looks like he might reach for his sword. “You pretend these superficial relationships you have with our classmates or with these women actually mean something, but you know they don’t. They don’t  _ love _ you, they can’t  _ protect _ you, and they don’t  _ know _ you. There is not one person who actually sees you for you, Sylvain, and that’s just pitiful.” He bites down hard on his lower lip to stop it from wobbling. Which makes Sylvain pause, even as he’s pulling the bloody barbs from his chest he has no good response to. Felix doesn’t cry. Not anymore. He doesn’t show any weakness of any sort. He might have come wailing to Sylvain once upon a time, but now he’ll take three arrows to the leg and sit unflinching as Mercedes heals him. And Felix seems to know his veneer has cracked. He finally decides to get a move on and brushes roughly past Sylvain down the street, but Sylvain knows he’ll get to the end of the road before not knowing which way to go. Felix doesn’t visit town often. And that’s how it goes. Felix stops at the junction and doesn’t move, shoulders tensed and hair in disarray, and doesn’t budge as he hears Sylvain’s footsteps approaching. 

“You sure seem to think you see me,” Sylvain says, careful to keep his voice level. It’s disturbing, actually. He thought he’d hidden it well. Practiced, even, before travelling south to Garreg Mach. How to wink and smile and lie so no one could tell. He’d done it so long in front of his father he thought he had it down to an art. But Felix sees him. This whole night, when Sylvain had thought they were having a nice dinner out, is this what Felix had been seeing the whole time?

He remembers how a young Felix would climb to the tops of trees and throw pinecones at Sylvain when they played hide-and-seek to give him away to the seeker. He’s always been scarily good at finding Sylvain.

Does Felix see just how much these years of being molded into his father have made Sylvain feel dirty from the outside in? It would be a release, to die protecting Ingrid or Flayn or Dimitri, because at least then he’d have done something good. It’s so confusing sometimes, how he wants to hurt but wants to be good all at once. He doesn’t understand himself most of the time. Just winks and flirts and throws himself in front of swords. 

“You watch me, out there in battle, don’t you?” Sylvain asks. 

Felix hmmphs. “Well, someone has to make sure you get home alive.” He realizes that he’s contradicted himself too late. “Not that I care!”

Goddess, this isn’t fair. He’s just one person, one person given too much, way too much to handle! How is Felix supposed to understand? How can he? And besides, he’s just as bad! And it’s easier to turn his anger around right now on that. Sylvain laughs. Harsh. Meaner than he meant. 

“You utter hypocrite! I see you too, Felix, and I see how you run around putting yourself in danger so the rest of us can’t! I see you training day after day because you need to be stronger than everyone, faster than everyone, better than everyone so you don’t have to lose anyone else!” 

He regrets those last words immediately.

Felix spins around then and shoves Sylvain in the chest, enough to make him take a step back. “Don’t bring Glenn into this!” 

Sylvain holds out his arms in exasperation. “How can I not bring Glenn into this? You’ve never talked to me about that, Fe, not once!” 

“This isn’t about Glenn!” Felix all but snarls. “You don’t get to talk about him. Not you with your...why the women?” And then his voice is breaking like glass, his face more vulnerable than even in sleep, imploring in a way Sylvain hates to know he caused. “Why make yourself look like such a fool? Such an idiot? Such a...such a good-for-nothing?” He pauses, and then seems to realize how open for attack he’s just made himself. His features school back into anger. “You’re more than this, Sylvain. I don’t care how much you hate yourself. How can you sit back knowing that they all think you’re useless? Nothing more than a bloodline?”

Because if they have no expectations, there’s no way to fail them. It’s the answer Felix deserves to hear, because it’s the truth. Sylvain has seen what happens to Gautier children who fail expectations. And he’s seen what happens to the children of noble houses who make themselves a little too marriageable. 

And he’s seen what happens to the others, the ones who hone their blades and wait for war and he wishes he could have saved Felix from this, the way he used to save him from dogs and big spiders and Ingrid when she was really angry, but they’re both too caught up in this now and there’s no saving either of them anymore. From this land, from themselves, from the war that is coming.

How can he sit back and know everyone thinks he’s useless?

“You see me for me,” Sylvain replies at last. “Don’t you already know the answer?” 

He’s pretty sure by now that Felix sort of hates himself too.

Felix’s eyes turn beseeching, and suddenly Sylvain isn’t sure what this conversation is about at all anymore. “You don’t have to court so many women, Sylvain. You don’t have to hurt yourself that way. You could...you could just…” And then his mouth snaps shut. He turns back around so his back faces Sylvain. “I’m tired. Let’s get back.” As if they didn’t just have their first shouting match in the back alleys of the town of Garreg Mach. As if he didn’t hurl every insult he had at Sylvain, aiming to kill. Or at least, Sylvain hopes that’s all of them. He can’t handle any more. Knowing that this is what Felix sees of him…

And that it’s the truth. 

Sylvain points to the left, and then begins to lead them home. He stops in the alley before it rejoins the main street, turns, and gestures for Felix to fix his hair, to look generally more rigid like he usually does. Felix glares but does so. And Sylvain takes his last chance to ask: “So you don’t think the real me exists anymore?” Because of the torrent of words Felix had said, more than he’ll probably say in the next two years combined, that was the sentence that stuck. Yes, he throws himself into danger, yes he dates women to hurt himself, yes he hates himself, spot on Felix, you win! He hates himself! But the real him, the one behind all the smiles and the fake compliments...does Felix see him gone for good? 

Felix pauses with his hands twisting his hair back into place, hair tie in his mouth. He frowns in annoyance and finishes quickly so he can answer. His mouth twists unpleasantly and he puts a hand on his hip as he studies the cobbled road. 

“Sometimes I see him,” he answers at last. “I’m waiting for him to truly come out again.” He steps around Sylvain into the main street, and then it’s an easy walk to the monastery from there. Felix keeps a brisk pace so he doesn’t have to talk to Sylvain, and Sylvain is quite fine with that, actually. He needs time to think. 

Still, it doesn’t stop him from accompanying Felix to his room, making sure he has plenty of water to drink and will generally survive the unlikely hangover from a pint of watered ale. 

“You don’t have to fuss,” Felix grumbles. 

Well, might as well let the Real Sylvain that Felix so desperately wants come out. “I like fussing over you,” Sylvain says, the truth heavy on his tongue, and then smiles weakly in Felix’s direction. There. That’s the best he’s got. The most real thing he can say. It’s easier to say it to Felix. He goes to sneak out of the room but Felix’s hand snakes out and closes around his arm. Felix drops his head and refuses to look at Sylvain while he speaks. The candlelight dances off his cheekbones and the sheen of his hair.

“What I said...it wasn't what I actually wanted to say. Not really. I got angry. And I shouldn’t have said a lot of the things I said tonight.” 

Sylvain shrugs. “You were right, so who cares?” 

The grip on his arm grows tighter. “I care.” And when those words leave Felix’s mouth, you know they’re true. 

Sylvain twists out of Felix’s grip to go stand in front of him, but Felix keeps his head down. Sylvain sighs and fiddles with the piping on his jacket. “Felix, I’m...I’m sorry.” And he is. “You’re right. You’re completely right.” He laughs to himself. “I want myself to hurt. Whether in battle, or through dating, making them hate me, making them think I’m just a Crest. Because I do hate myself. I do. I don’t like who I am, I don’t like who my father expects to be, and I want to change but nothing ever seems to stick. Something...something went wrong in me after Duscur.” That’s no excuse. “But I wasn’t thinking about how I was hurting people even  _ more _ than I was hurting myself. I wasn’t thinking about hurting you.” He pauses. Waits for a reaction.

Felix bobs his head. “Go on.”

What’s there to go on about? 

“How can I make it up to you?” Sylvain asks, voice a hoarse whisper. “And please don’t say training. I’ll train my ass off if you want, but how do I make it up to you, Felix? How do I…” Goddess, why can’t his silver tongue work around this man? “How can I make it so things are good between us again? So you don’t...so you don’t hate me too?”

You and me? It was once the most precious thing I had. And I can’t believe how close I am to losing it. I’ve probably lost it already. Please help me Felix. Please tell me how to be good again.

Felix stares at him, head tilted to the side. “Smile?” he asks, which seems an odd request at the moment, but Sylvain complies the best he can. It’s not his best smile. But Felix smiles back—what a great smile—and steps back with a smug tilt to his hips. “Real,” he says. “At least for now.” He takes a slow step forward, back into place, and then leans in and bonks his forehead against Sylvain’s chest. Such a fleeting touch, but Sylvain’s heart races. “Moron,” Felix says fondly. “You think I would let you sleep in my bed if I hated you?” He lifts his face and gives a little exasperated sigh as he rolls his eyes. “I think I’m officially stuck with you, Gautier.” 

And Sylvain smiles, relief flooding every bit of his body, to his toes, to his fingertips, through every vein and artery. “So,  _ your _ moron then?” 

Felix nods and reaches to straighten Sylvain’s jacket. “My moron.” 

How strangely comforting it is to be claimed as somebody’s moron. Tethered to someone who can keep him from spiralling. Tethered to someone who sees him for him, and wants him anyway. Please never let go of that tether, Felix. I need it. I need it to remember the decent person I used to be. Before my life became about becoming someone else.

And for two weeks, it works. Sylvain attempts to make his smile a little more real, and Felix reins in his insults. For two weeks, it seems like everything might be alright. That they’ll be able to fix things. 

Two weeks. And Edelgard declares war on Garreg Mach. The time for fixing things is over. 

The world is already way past that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for reading! I'm going to try to publish a chapter every couple of days, as quick as I can proofread them really, so no more gaps~  
> (Amazing how watching a sib play FE15 and mercilessly merk both Sylvain and Felix in battle makes you suddenly desperate to return to the wonderful world of 'No they're not dead they're cuddly! Cuddly I say!')  
> (I always thought Felix wanted to confess something...sweet in that A support but wouldn't really be able to work up the courage to ever say it. So I made it into a fight because I'm a jerk like that, sorry boys, you can be soft later.)


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

One morning, Sylvain wakes to a practice lance being thrown across his chest. He sits bolt upright with a yelp and then blinks at the weapon in his lap. Felix stands at the end of the bed, holding a practice sword easily at his side. “We can spar in here.” 

Sylvain massages where the lance whacked his stomach as he slides his feet out of bed. “The healer said to take it easy.”

Felix scoffs and swings the sword about. “I’m feeling fine. The only thing keeping me here is that blasted snow. And I’m going to be going right back to life as a merc. You really want me to do that without getting in some practice?” 

“We’re going to scatter the paperwork everywhere!” Sylvain protests, looking for any excuse he can find. “Or...out of our piles at least.”

“Well, why don’t you defend that side of the room and stop me from doing that?” Felix grins and it’s feral. 

What follows is two straight hours of Sylvain being beat up by a wooden sword. He can tell Felix is going easy on him and mostly practicing his basic exercises, but Sylvain stops counting the number of times he’s tapped on the arm, the hand, the neck, the head. It’s more controlled than the Felix he remembers, who had taken a lot of notes from Byleth and incorporated his fists, his head, his knees, his teeth as weapons, but Sylvain doubts that Felix has become more subdued over the years. It’s just that Sylvain is so pathetically out of practice that Felix would feel bad kneeing him in the crotch. Probably. Felix is careful to step around their messy sorting system of paperwork at least, and doesn’t seem to be feeling bad at all after he calls their session to an end, properly stretching out his muscles with no sign of pain from his stomach. 

“I’m going to need clothes,” Felix mentions as he leans the practice sword against the wall and flings himself into the desk chair to begin searching through more documents to go through today. “Real ones. Not…” He plucks at the old Margrave’s clothes. 

“You want leather and fur?” Sylvain asks with a sigh. Felix nods. Well, that is standard mercenary wear. Sylvain writes out a letter while Felix gets to work, occasionally asking him to stand still so Sylvain can measure him with the tape measure Linus rustles up for him. 

“I don’t need a suit!” Felix gripes. Sylvain just finishes his measurements. He can guarantee Felix some nice clothes at least. He catches sight of the ribbon in Felix’s hair and smiles. Maybe a little more than nice.

Sylvain takes Felix with him to visit their lone carrier pigeon. Her name is Kathleen, and she arrives at the correct destination about twenty percent of the time. She can also only make it to the nearest village, barely. 

“Do you take pride in being completely isolated?” Felix complains as Sylvain rolls his letter up, sticks it in the tube, and attaches the tube to Kathleen’s left leg. She never gets where she’s supposed to go if he attaches it to the right. They send Kathleen out a window together and watch the pigeon fly away. 

Felix clicks his tongue. “What’s the word for ‘hobble’ when it’s flying?” 

“Flobble,” Sylvain says with a straight face. 

Felix nods, smiling tugging at his lip. “She flobbles.” 

Linus has longed pulled up an extra chair so Felix joins them for dinner in the kitchen as he has for the past week. He and Milo get along famously, to the point Sylvain almost feels ignored, but he knows Milo gets lonely sometimes, being Linus’ age but so different, so it’s good. Does Linus get lonely? Sylvain hadn’t ever really considered it. Linus always seems content as long as he has books. Ms. Adelaide just eats and smiles to herself. The woman raised a thousand of her own children so maybe this noisy table feels like home. 

Felix forces him into sparring every morning, which becomes a bit more fun when Sylvain actually remembers how to move a lance. He can’t get a single hit on Felix, of course. Felix begins calling out each time he could have dealt Sylvain a death blow, which isn’t exactly encouraging. 

“How the hell do you protect yourself when you travel?” Felix asks at last, exasperated. “Does Milo have some secret techniques I don’t know about yet? Or do you dazzle the bandits away with a little fire in your palm? That’s a hit to your neck, by the way. From the right side. Your right, not mine.” 

Sylvain grunts as he holds the lance in both hands to block an overhead blow. “I’ve never been attacked, so it doesn’t matter.” 

“So you travel without any protection whatsoever.” Felix sighs, disarms Sylvain in three moves, and then holds the lance himself as a sort of trophy. “That’s the height of idiocy and you know it.” 

Sylvain tries not to look too winded as he rests his hands on his knees. “Well, take comfort that you’ll be protecting me for this trip.” Felix isn’t impressed by that. He tosses the practice weapons onto the bed and ignores Sylvain for the next hour as he sits cross-legged on the floor flipping through papers. They’ve moved onto Dagda now, pushing past Brigid. With the documents from Almyra squared away and arguments about potatoes over, the two of them are actually starting to discuss new policies and dictating sample peace treaties and trade agreements with other major countries surrounding Fódlan. Sylvain knows he’s been more productive the past week than he has been in eight years, or at least it feels so, though he knows it’s mostly because the work seems to fly past so much more quickly. It’s almost...fun. Which is not a word he ever expected to attach to his work. 

There’s a few sunny days in a row and the snow begins to melt. Sylvain tries not to glance out the window. Even if he knows Felix will be gone soon, probably for good, he wants to hold onto these days, these days he knows he’ll remember for the rest of his life as perfect days, even though they involve a lot of times being hit with a practice sword. Felix is quicker to smile, quicker to laugh, quicker to raise an eyebrow and make some rude or sardonic comment. And somehow it just goes unsaid that Sylvain continues to sleep in Felix’s bed. It’s just something that happened, and now it isn’t changing. He pointedly ignores Ms. Adelaide’s pursed smile when she brings them joint breakfast in the morning. Felix doesn’t seem embarrassed. Just thanks her enthusiastically for the porridge and then beats Sylvain with a stick and calls it training. Well, why be embarrassed? Not like they’re doing anything more than sleeping. They never did anything more than sleeping. 

Maybe. Maybe they could have done more. Kissed. Touched. Maybe, if Sylvain had gotten his act together sooner. He thinks back to his twenty year old self and sort of hates him, almost as much as he’d hated himself at the time, for all the wrong reasons. Dumb kid, don’t you realize the one you’re going to love is right there in the training room, endlessly sparring while you run around after girls? 

Whoops, he thought the word. He can’t think that word. Not with Felix right here, not with them sharing a bed each night, not when it would be too easy to reach out and see if that kiss could still be welcomed, and especially not with goodbye so close. So don’t you dare think that word. 

A hand waves in front of his face. “Hey. Wake up. Did you hear anything I just said?” 

Sylvain blinks up at Felix, standing with arms braced on the table, and then down at the papers in front of him. He shifts in the chair and shakes his head in an attempt to clear it. “Nope. You knocked the hearing right out of me this morning.” 

Felix colors. “I said I was sorry.” He’d accidentally hit Sylvain in the side of the head with the flat of his blade during this morning’s spar. He’d pulled it back the moment he’d realized Sylvain wasn’t going to be able to block it so all Sylvain had gotten was a knock on the temple, but Felix had still insisted on ice and bedrest, expression troubled as he’d sat at Sylvain’s side, holding the cloth full of ice to the slight red spot causing all the commotion and apologizing in shameful mumbles. 

He still looks ashamed now and Sylvain almost regrets bringing it up. “I’m joking, Felix. I was just ignoring you like usual.”

Felix huffs. “Yeah, I know. And what you ignored is that I think you should give this—” His finger jabs at a small stack of papers he must have just placed on the table. “—to von Aegir.” 

“To Ferdinand?” 

“If we want to be on a first name basis, then yes, to Ferdinand. He’s incredibly popular among old Empire loyalists because his last name is von Aegir, and incredibly popular among everyone else because he’s honest and genuinely has their best interests at heart.” 

Sylvain gathers up the papers. It’s a draft for a speech Dimitri means to give the next time he visits Enbarr. “It’s not like you to be so complimentary.” 

Felix shrugs. “I haven’t spoken to the man in years. All I can do is pass along what the people say. But if Dimitri gives a speech that Ferdinand helped write and can get Ferdinand up on the balcony with him, showing public support, then that’s even better.”

Sylvain hums. It makes sense. Ferdinand is the most valuable political asset down south right now, though he’s still not sure he agrees with Dimitri’s decision to let von Vestra out of prison and into Ferdinand’s control. Von Vestra unnerves him, just straight up makes him shiver. But if anyone can keep him on the straight and narrow, it’s probably Ferdinand—if Sylvain remembers correctly, von Vestra had once complained that five minutes in von Aegir’s company was enough to make poison seem like a delicious beverage, so come any trouble, he supposes Ferdinand can just annoy Hubert to death. But letting von Vestra out was yet another political move. One of the great names of the Empire, stripped of land but not of name, partnered with von Aegir. Another way of pacifying loyalists while placing yet another checkmark beside old families throwing their support behind Dimitri, even if ‘support’ might be a little bit of an exaggeration in Hubert’s case. 

“You know Dimitri is letting Hubert von Vestra out of prison?” Sylvain asks, setting the speech aside. He wants to gossip. 

Felix shrugs again, settling with his arms crossed. “It was only a matter of time. He was the only one still imprisoned as an agent of the Empire, so letting him go is a show of trust. Be interesting to see how he reacts, though.” 

“Reacts to what?” 

“Not having Edelgard.” Felix finally meets his eyes again and raises a brow. “Wasn’t he basically raised to be her protector? It’s like Dedue and Dimitri except ten times worse. I can’t imagine he’ll be in any state to do anything for a while, having no purpose like that. Puppet with his strings cut. What will it be? House arrest?”

“He’s being given to Ferdinand.” 

“Ahh,” Felix says slowly. “Torture it is.”

“I thought you liked Ferdinand.” 

“I can like someone while still thinking they’re fucking annoying. Actually, I think that’s my relationship with most people.” Felix’s lips twitch and he turns to stroll away from the table. 

Sylvain scoffs. “So you think I’m fucking annoying?” 

Felix flops onto the bed and begins playing with the kitten. “Sylvain, you are the bane of my existence.” 

The words...sting, even though he recognizes they’re mostly said in jest. Bane of your existence. Is that why you left, Felix? 

Sylvain clears his throat and sets that aside for another time. “Alright, well you’ve been in the Empire more recently than me so a little help? I can draft the speech, and then send it to Ferdinand to work on from there.” 

Felix groans in response and rolls onto his back, arms splayed out like a dead person. “Fine.” It’s an easier agreement than Sylvain was expecting, actually, and they’re quite productive. It’s been a year or three since Sylvain was down in what was once the Empire, so having Felix’s opinion on how the people feel and will receive Dimitri is way more helpful than he would have thought had someone approached him two weeks ago and told him a merc was going to help him write royal speeches. 

“Okay, okay,” Sylvain says at last, clambering onto the bed and shoving Felix out of the way so he has room to lie down right beside him, sharing the papers in his hand. “Read this and tell me what you think.” 

Felix is warm and comfortable beside him as he snatches the speech and holds it to the dying afternoon light. “It’s cheesy,” he says at last. “When did we agree on the part of undoing past mistakes and creating a bright future for one people?” 

“We didn’t. I put that in.” Sylvain turns his head to watch the way Felix’s brows knit and he opens his mouth to complain. “I figure if we put the cheesiness in already, it will keep Ferdinand in line,” he says before Felix can actually get a word out. “Or at least, when Dimitri makes the final edits, he can take out  _ our  _ cheesiness so Ferdinand won’t get offended, because he’ll probably add plenty of his own.” Felix’s face settles, and then he grins and laughs a little, precious sound. 

“Listen to you, being such a politician.” 

Sylvain nudges him with his shoulder. “Come on, you were the one who said we should give this to Ferdinand. You’re the politician, not me.” 

Felix goes oddly still at that, and then flips so he’s facing Sylvain. Which is just weird if Sylvain doesn’t mirror him, so they lie side by side and nose to nose. “Really?” he asks, eyes narrowed and troubled. “You really mean that?”

Sylvain debates whether this next move will result in retaining all four limbs before finally caving and putting a hand on Felix’s side, just above the dip of his waist. Felix startles a little at the move, but it keeps him in place when he tries to twist away. “Why would I lie?” Sylvain asks him. The pages of the speech go scattered across them in a complete mess. “Does it bother you that much? Felix, we were raised to do this kind of stuff.” 

Felix stops trying to subtly turn away and frowns at Sylvain, hot breath puffing out against Sylvain’s face with every word. They had bear meat for lunch. “You were raised to do this stuff, Sylvain! You were always going to be the heir, from the moment they knew you had a Crest. I know it wasn’t fair, but it’s what happened.” He laughs again, scornful this time. “I was never going to be the heir. By the time they knew I would be, it was too late. I say this to people and I don’t think they believe me, think I’m exaggerating, but you know that I could swing a sword before I could write my name. I was only ever raised to fight. To be a knight, while Glenn became the Duke Fraldarius.” He stares at Sylvain for a long moment, blinking heavily the way he always used to when thinking about Glenn. His voice is softer when he continues. “Going to the Officers Academy...that was my father’s attempt to make me an heir. But it didn’t work, because the war ended up being our education. I’m no heir, and I’m no politician.” And he rolls hard enough to break out of Sylvain’s hold. “I’m a sword, remember, Sylvain? I’m simply a sword.”

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of a bed he’d never thought he would return to. It’s dusty, and Felix will have to spend all day tomorrow cleaning or he’ll never be able to reinhabit this room. 

Maybe he’ll just go watch over Dimitri some more. Felix swings his legs out of bed and dresses quickly before sneaking out of the dormitories over to the chapel. Yes, there’s Dimitri, right where he’s been for the past three days. He knows Byleth has at least gotten their king of kings to eat, but a bath wouldn’t be out of place. The man stinks of blood. Felix settles in the doorway with one foot propped up and folds his arms, a position he can hold for hours if he needs to. And probably will. Finding Dimitri like this had been...unpleasant. He can’t even take pride in rubbing everyone’s faces in it. Yes, he’d been right all along. Dimitri had been on a violent path of self-destruction, set in motion by the Tragedy of Duscur, but it didn’t mean it was fun for Felix to watch play out. The Fraldarius family was the shield of the king. Even if Felix thought his father’s devotion to that was bullshit, he still had to wonder. If he had been a better shield, what version of Dimitri would be standing here tonight?

He can tell it’s Sylvain by the cadence of his footsteps, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Dimitri until Sylvain clears his throat and plucks at his sleeve. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Felix isn’t really sure how to act around Sylvain these days. They’d left the Academy in sort of a weird place, a sort of in-between place, and immediately been drafted into their own family armies. Felix had never had the chance to say what he really needed to say.

Stop seeing those girls. See me. 

See me standing right here in front of you. I promise I won’t hurt you. To the best of my ability, at least. I’ll try.

Not that they hadn’t seen each other plenty over the last five years. The Gautier and Fraldarius forces had intermingled a lot, with Sreng to the north flexing its muscles and the Alliance right to the east in constant turmoil. With the Margrave Gautier absent from the battlefield, it left Sylvain in charge, and that suited him. It really suited him. Felix had taken advantage of his father’s presence to spend time with Gautier forces. The first time he’d seen Sylvain since the war broke out, it was after a battle with an Empire patrol group, nothing but a skirmish really, but Sylvain had tossed aside his armor polish and run to clap Felix on the back like they’d been involved in some grand victory. Like this was some clandestined reunion. He laughed as he ruffled Felix’s new haircut and was loud and cheery and everything his army needed him to be. But Felix needed the quiet, soft Sylvain so he could finish saying what he was supposed to say before he died on the end of some lance or with an arrow in his throat.

Please feel for me what I feel for you. Please, smile for me so I know it’s real and feel for me what I feel for you.

But it seemed Felix would never get the chance to get those words out. He lost Sylvain just as effectively as he had after Duscur, watched him become a leader and a lord and everything he was supposed to be. A figurehead. As nice as it was to see Sylvain laugh and smile and celebrate, it was another persona. Just another act that Sylvain slipped into as easily as his womanizer one. Anytime they met, Felix knew he wasn’t speaking to the actual Sylvain. It was...closer, but not quite right. 

Not until Felix had been on the road to Garreg Mach and heard hoofbeats behind him, a voice calling his name. It had been the real Sylvain then. Felix could tell in an instant. His grin was crooked and his hair all mussed, like he’d just rolled out of bed. He slumped a little in the saddle and his armor wasn’t polished. He’d been tossing an apple with a bite out of it in his left hand. “You heading for the monastery?”

“Maybe.” 

“Can I offer you a ride?”

“You can offer it.” 

And so Sylvain ended up walking at Felix’s side, leading his horse, as the two of them travelled in silence toward a five year reunion. When Ingrid joined them, it was almost like being kids again, playing with sticks and bucket helmets at being knights.

It’s his Sylvain again. The real one. Back at last, free from the expectations of his father, free to flourish as a strategian, even free to fight with comrades who  _ will  _ have his back this time. 

He doesn’t even seem to hate himself anymore, or at least it’s just residual, even if he still flirts with anything on two legs. It’s more for fun now, Felix thinks. The real Sylvain.

And Felix has no idea what to do with him. 

Now, safely back in Garreg Mach, the real Sylvain takes up position beside Felix, but is fussing after ten minutes of watching Dimitri sulk. “He’s not going to move all night. Do you really have to watch him the whole time?” 

It hadn’t been the plan, but his mouth just moves on its own when it comes to Sylvain. “Yes. Yes I do.” 

Sylvain sighs and settles back into place. In another ten minutes he starts tapping his booted foot. 

“You don’t have to stay with me,” Felix reminds him. 

Sylvain smiles, something gentler and more genuine than Felix has gotten used to, and winks. Alright, so the winking has unfortunately stayed a habit. “I’m still hoping I can convince you to leave with me.” 

Felix glances back at Dimitri, who hasn’t gone anywhere, and then hustles Sylvain around the corner so they can talk freely. “What do you want?” he sighs, and Sylvain looks completely offended. 

“Fe, it’s been years since we were able to just hang out together. Can’t I want to, I don’t know, talk to you?” 

“That’s not generally on people’s wishlists, no.” 

“Felix,” Sylvain groans, hiding his face in one hand. “Saints, you never make it easy. How about the training grounds? You wanna go to the training grounds?” 

“Don’t make me sound like some sort of dog!” Felix snaps. “No. I want to stay here and watch over the boar.”

“All night?”

“All night.” 

“The ladies must love that persistence in bed.” 

Felix nearly chokes on his own tongue. Sylvain rubs his back helpfully while he’s bent over coughing. “Jackass,” Felix mumbles when he straightens, wiping spit from his mouth. Sylvain shrugs. 

“Guilty as charged.” His expression changes into something calmer though. Controlled. “How’s it been, on that front? Found a Mrs. Fraldarius to carry on the family line?”

“No!” 

“Cute girl to have a fling with?” 

“No!” Felix growls. His hand taps against the hilt of his sword, not trying to intimidate, but trying to calm down. “No wives, no mistresses, no girls at all! Though I suppose you have a wife and ten mistresses lined up?” 

That’s mean and he knows it’s not true but maybe he’s just mean and that’s the real him. 

Sylvain raises his eyebrows—he knows it was just mean—and settles one hand on his hip, contemplative. “No. No wife or mistresses. I did kiss my mother before coming here but I think we can safely say that was platonic.”

Felix narrows his eyes at Sylvain, who stands there and endures it, and then he finally huffs before shoving past Sylvain. “Fine. Training grounds.” 

“Finally,” he hears Sylvain mutter, but Felix is almost leaving him behind in his urge to get somewhere he might feel more in control. 

He sheds his cloak the minute the doors close behind them and goes to where his new favorite training sword hangs. His old favorite disappeared sometime over the past five years, but Felix has spent enough time here to locate a suitable replacement. Sylvain grabs a lance and grins as he swings it around one arm. “Best of three?” 

“Best of one,” Felix says, and swings at Sylvain without warning. Saints, he’s got so much built up he needs to get out with a blade. “This is war!” he says, spinning and ducking to force Sylvain to protect his vulnerable knees. Up again, and attacking with full force where Sylvain is now vulnerable at the neck and shoulders. Attacking from the first had been his advantage, of course. Now that he’s inside the range of Sylvain’s lance, it will be very hard to stop him. Sylvain manages to straighten in time to prevent a blow to his neck and twirls the lance hard enough to whack Felix in the stomach and push him around a bit until he retreats out of range. Not a bad move. “Anything is fair,” Felix continues from before, just a little winded. “Anything is a weapon. Anything to stay alive. No bullshit knightliness. None of that stuff Ashe and Ingrid believe in.” 

“It’s good they have something to believe in,” Sylvain says, breathing hard. 

Felix snorts and tosses the sword from one hand to the other. He’s been working on getting both hands up to equal skill just in case his dominant hand is injured in battle. “Yeah, well they can run around being gallant and true and I’ll run along behind killing all those whose lives they so graciously spared.” And then he charges at Sylvain again, tossing the sword to the other hand one last time before he attacks so Sylvain’s responding sweep of the lance goes the wrong way entirely. Felix could end it here, but this is more fun than he’s had in a while. He taps Sylvain lightly on the elbow, then the knee, then in the stomach, just tiny touches of the sword tip, while blocking Sylvain’s attacks and slipping around him with the ease his smaller frame allows. 

He isn’t expecting the punch. 

“Anything is a weapon, right?” Sylvain calls, flexing the fingers of his right hand. There’s blood on the armor of his knuckles. Felix, slightly dazed on the ground, touches his lip. His fingers come away red. Damn it. He didn’t want to resort to this. But…

“That’s right!” he says, and summons the magic into his hand. He can see Sylvain panic from here. He’d been focused on white magic and hadn’t learned much before the battle at Garreg Mach. He doesn’t have anything to counteract Thoron. 

“Felix! Felix, you win, don’t…” 

Felix casts the spell, and Sylvain freezes in place as it shoots over his shoulder and into the wall of practice swords. Felix rolls, grabs his sword from where it had fallen in the dirt, and throws himself at Sylvain with a cry. Sylvain’s attention, focused entirely on the now demolished rung of weapons, yelps when he turns to see Felix in the air before him, but there’s no time to respond. Felix locks his knees around Sylvain’s torso and takes him down, practice sword held firmly against his neck. “Best of one. I win.” 

Sylvain stares up at him with dirt on his face and eyes still wide with panic. Slowly, slowly, his expression goes soft. A smile. A gentle smile, just for Felix, as he lies there pinned on the ground. Not for triumphant troops. Not to galvanize exhausted armies. Not to be noble and good. Just a smile, just for Felix. “It’s good to have you back.”

Felix hasn’t been smiling a ton recently. He hopes this one doesn’t look demented. “I like…” he starts, and then sits back so Sylvain can breathe better. Sylvain sits up too, which lands Felix right in his lap. He panics, but Sylvain’s hands simply come to rest on his back, supporting him. One hand rubs gentle circles Felix is pretty sure Sylvain isn’t aware he’s actually doing. The practice sword falls from Sylvain’s neck to remain a barrier between their chests. 

“You like?” Sylvain prompts, tilting his head, and Felix can’t tell if he’s being annoying or coy. His hair flops onto one eye in a really unfairly attractive fashion. Felix clears his throat and glances away to the ruined rack of practice swords. Does he have to deal with that or will Byleth accept it was a random strike of lightning? 

I like being here with you. But he’d been out of his mind to consider saying that. 

“There’s no girls here for you to flirt with,” Felix notes instead. 

“Ah, well…” Felix can feel the rumble of Sylvain’s voice in the sword held against his chest. “There’s the Professor, I guess. Maybe that will incense Dimitri into snapping out of it.” He shrugs. “The cooks always gave me extra food if I threw some compliments their way. I’m not completely out of options.” He quirks an eyebrow playfully. “Why the sudden interest? You have your eye on a certain cook?”

Felix tenses and relaxes again with Sylvain’s hands warm on his back. “No, idiot. I’m just…” He shuts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Sylvain’s expression. This is stupid. Maybe the thrill of the win is getting to his head. “...just happy to know there isn’t a Mrs. Gautier yet.” 

A moment of silence, and then Sylvain laughs. “Oh? You have an opinion?” 

Felix risks opening his eyes. “Maybe I do,” he says simply, and rolls out of Sylvain’s lap to go start picking up practice swords. 

“Who is it?” Sylvain needles, following close behind and helping to clean. “I want to know!” 

Felix sighs, long and loud. He shouldn’t have said that. Should have lied and said he doesn’t care what Sylvain does as long as Felix doesn’t have to hear about it. But apparently he’s into the truth tonight and it’s fucking him over. “There’s no one! I don’t have an opinion!”

“That’s boring,” Sylvain teases. 

“Yes, well…” Felix grabs another practice sword and chucks it in the vague direction of the wall. “I don’t really give a fuck about romance one way or the other.” The next sword makes a splintering sound in the sudden silence and he winces at the way the crack echoes. 

Because Sylvain has suddenly become very, very silent. He carefully gathers some more scattered weapons from the ground as Felix waits with apprehension, and then finally, in a mild voice, asks, “So you never want to be in love?” 

Felix sucks in breath and carefully keeps his face in shadow. He could have never had this conversation in the light of day. “I didn’t say that, you moron.” He kicks the pile of swords at his feet. “Byleth will have to be happy with this.” He grabs his cloak on the way out of the training grounds, ignoring Sylvain’s call of his name. Nobody comes chasing after him anyways. 

The dusty bed doesn’t bother him so much this time when he gets back to his room. He groans and covers his face. So stupid. Sylvain always coaxes so much more truth out of him than he wanted to give. 

Here’s an opinion: See me, Sylvain. See me standing right in front of you. See me, who doesn’t understand why I feel like this but can’t ever seem to stop. Who sees your real smile and hears your real laugh and is jealous that the very air gets to see and hear it as well, because I want you all to myself, payback for those years of having nothing at all. See me, who would storm Enbarr alone and end the war if it meant I could grab your hand and drag you off somewhere where neither of us have to pretend to be anything but the truth, a happy ending for two kids who weren’t born into fairytales but could maybe steal one, if you’d let me try. See me. 

He hates these feelings. Hates how he tries to dampen them but they always come back with the mere sight of a smile. And it feels like Felix has always been reaching out, trying to find that  _ real Sylvain _ beneath it all, but for six years he just reached and reached and his fingers closed on nothing. The Sylvain from his childhood, the Sylvain that had been  _ his _ , was gone, no matter how much Felix loved him. Like smoke, hands that reached for him would close around nothing but the reminder that once a fire was here. Now, he reaches out and his hands  _ burn _ . 

Sylvain’s hands had been so warm against his back, his breath warm too, his whole body so alive in the midst of their fight, it was, for a moment, a brief instance of what it is to have his real Sylvain back, and he loves him, and his hands are burning as they reach for the real Sylvain he’s been searching for for so many years. 

But he needs to pull back. Perhaps it’s best he doesn’t have his Sylvain back. Burnt hands can’t grip a sword.

And a sword doesn’t know how to love.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

He refuses to think he might be domesticated. Felix trains in the night while Sylvain sleeps in the bed, the same exercises for hours and hours until his arms are beginning to hurt in that good way that means he’s making up for this odd week or two not training diligently. And the more he trains, the less time he spends staring at Sylvain. Because that’s what he ends up doing, inevitably, when Sylvain just wordlessly decides to start sleeping in his bed instead of making the three extra footsteps to his own damn bedroom. The worst thing about it is that Felix is happy about it all, loves feeling the heat of another body, specifically Sylvain’s, as he rests beneath the blankets and falls asleep. Loves waking early in the morning and watching the way the sun breaks across Sylvain’s face, older now, new things to memorize. It’s like when they were back in school and Sylvain would sleep in his bed and Felix would always use an extra five minutes before he got up to train to study Sylvain’s face and wonder what it would feel like to kiss him. 

Anyway, he spends a lot of time training. You can’t think about stupid things when you’re focusing on a sword. 

And suddenly there’s the day Felix is sitting on the floor feeding Mira by the handful and Sylvain is eating a sandwich with one hand and trying to twirl his practice lance with the other and Linus comes to the door to tell them the snow has been cleared from the paths and the roads are open to horses once more. 

The lance clatters to the floor. “Oh,” says Sylvain, and Felix knows that he’s staring at him now. Can feel the hair on his neck rising. 

“Oh,” Felix repeats, because that’s honestly all he feels right now. An absence of emotion. Or maybe emotion he’d rather not feel. “That’s...thanks.” 

Linus lingers in the doorway, clearly a little confused. The dinner conversation ever since Felix was well enough to join them has always included some reference to the fact they’ll be leaving for Fhirdiad when the snow clears. “Should I ask Milo to prepare horses for a trip to the capital?” 

“Um…” Sylvain takes a few steps and bends at the waist to enter Felix’s field of vision. “Are you able to ride a horse now?” 

“I’ve always been able to ride a horse.”

“But without all the swearing and falling off, I mean.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“I will get back to you on that, Linus.” 

“Sir.” The secretary bows and escapes before Felix can start throwing handfuls of cat food. Sylvain ducks and the food goes scattering across the carpet behind him. Coward. 

“What?” Sylvain yelps and takes cover behind the desk. “You’re awful at riding! And you hate horses! Stop...blegh...stop throwing meat at me!”

Felix throws one last handful without much enthusiasm. “That doesn’t mean you get to just...tell people!” He sighs and lowers his hand to let Mira eat the ground bear meat now stuck to his fingers. He is still awful at riding. It’s something Leonie never stops laughing about. Unless absolutely forced to, Felix will not get on a horse. He doesn’t care if it slows the band down. The closest he will get is leading a horse, just so he doesn’t have to carry all his own stuff on his back. But if the way to get to Fhirdiad is to ride a horse then...then…

“You still can’t ride a horse though?” Sylvain asks, poking his head out from behind the table leg. Felix shakes his head. “Do you want to wait until we can take the carriage?” Felix shakes his head again. What he wants is to walk, because he’s used to walking now, but the Margrave Gautier can’t just walk to Fhirdiad. 

Sylvain is quiet for a moment. Felix focuses on the kitten. He’s going to miss her, but he certainly can’t steal her away and take her on the road. Not with a bad leg. Maybe he’ll ask Ms. Ada to make sure Mira is fed properly. She didn’t mind taking him in after all, so what’s a cute little kitten? 

“What if we were on horses, but you were tethered to me?” Sylvain slides out into full view and shuffles on his knees a little way back towards Felix. “That would be fine, right? My horses are good. If one is tethered to another, it won’t buck or run or even sneeze, probably.” He tilts his head from one side to another and laughs a little. “Might look a little silly for my personal guard to be tethered to my horse, but maybe we can just walk them the last while.” 

Felix nods along. Tethered. Sounds...manageable. He’ll still be on a horse, which is a huge drawback to the plan, but he won’t need to do anything. It’ll just go. He can manage that. But, wait. “Personal guard?”

“Yeah!” Sylvain says in that voice that means he’s really excited about something. “I thought about it when you were nagging me—”

“I don’t  _ nag _ .”

“—about not having a guard when I travel, and you’ll need some sort of alibi when we’re in Fhirdiad anyway so why not be my guard? We just pretend that I got some common sense—”

“Unlikely.” 

“—and hired a guard! That way, I can help you try to find word on Leonie!”

Felix holds up his hand not covered in meat. “No. You’ll be too conspicuous. We reach Fhirdiad, and that’s it. We separate there.” Wait, no, damn it. “I mean...we can visit...we can visit some people first I guess, but won’t Dimitri want to see you? He needs to see you, about the trade agreement. And I can’t see Dimitri. So we’ll just…” Part ways. They’ll part ways. The idea makes Felix’s chest feel tight, but it’s not as bad as the first time he left. At least this time he’ll get the chance to say a real goodbye. 

Sylvain bites at his lip and threads his fingers together. “You know, Dimitri would be really happy to see you.” 

“My life doesn’t revolve around what will make His Majesty happy.” You’d think people would have that figured out by now.

Sylvain sighs and then runs those long fingers through his hair distractedly. “Fe, I don’t like the idea of knowing you’re alive and keeping it from people. People who love you. Who miss you. Why can’t they know?” 

Felix nabs Mira off the floor and places her on his shoulder. He stares down at Sylvain, and then at his hand, still messy with meat and now kitten saliva where she gnawed on his thumb for a while. “Because,” he says, and spins around to walk into Sylvain’s room. He’ll wash his hand off in the water basin.

“Because why?” Sylvain follows him. Of course he does. Doesn’t he get it that Felix is trying to get away from him? Felix hastens his steps and passes from the light of his room to the dark of Sylvain’s room. The blinds have been closed for days on end, since this room is only used for the washroom attached and Sylvain’s pathetic attempts at shaving. He lets Mira onto the bureau and hurries to the washroom, attempting to kick the door shut in Sylvain’s face but he’s way too close behind for that. Felix grips the sides of the washbasin, trying to keep himself steady as Sylvain goes on, and on, and on, this awful conversation Felix never wanted to have and can’t he just…?

“Why can’t people know you’re alive? You told me you didn’t even mean for people to think you were dead. So what would be the harm in seeing Dimitri and letting him know you’re okay? Huh?”

Felix’s fingers drum against the tin of the basin, his teeth clenched. Because. Because, because, because! 

“What about the Professor? Byleth thinks you’re dead too, probably!” Sylvain continues, hands in the air dancing to his angry words. “So if we’re going to visit Ashe and Ingrid why can’t we just—?”

Can’t he just  _ shut up _ ?

“Because!” The basin of water doesn’t break when it hits the floor, not being porcelain, but the water splashes everywhere. All over the floor. The door. All over Felix, who stands there, face aflame. He didn’t mean to do that. He didn’t mean to do that at all. He might be angry sometimes, but the only times it actually scares him is when he loses control. 

He’s losing control.

But Sylvain doesn’t back down. Actually crowds into Felix’s space and it had been a terrible idea to trap himself in a smaller room. Felix tries to duck out but Sylvain’s hands lock around his upper arms. 

“Why can’t they know? Why?” 

“Because!”

“Because what? Because it will make them happy?”

“No!” 

“Then why?” Sylvain snaps. “Why, Felix? Make me understand! Why?”

Felix shuts his eyes and drops his head. He can’t have this argument with Sylvain, he can’t. But apparently he has to. “Because they’ll try to make me come back!” he shouts, and twists his arms out of Sylvain’s grip, which hurts like hell. He rubs at one arm and keeps his eyes moving everywhere, everywhere, anywhere but Sylvain’s face so he doesn’t have to see the anger, the disappointment there. “I know...I know Ingrid will. I’m ready for that. But if I see all of them...Dimitri and Byleth and, oh Goddess, Annette...they’ll try to make me stay. And I can’t stay.” 

Sylvain stands very still, the complete contrast to Felix’s jitters, and then he finally asks the question that they’ve avoided the entire time thus far. “Why can’t you stay?”

Felix hates his eyes. He hates his throat. He hates his chest. He hates his hands. Why can’t they stop shaking? “Same reason I left,” he mumbles. 

Sylvain still doesn’t move. “So, it really wasn’t me? You didn’t leave because of me?”

Felix rolls stinging eyes. “I told you already, it wasn’t you. Why would you think it was you?” 

“Well, I…” Sylvain’s voice catches and then he takes a step back, which allows Felix an escape. He takes it. He takes that escape right into the other room and shuts the door between them. And then the one to the main hall. He doesn’t want Linus walking by and seeing him right now. 

He wipes his hands on his soaken shirt and goes to fetch a new one from the pile Ms. Ada left him on top of the bureau. He tries not to sniff, but it’s difficult. Why would Sylvain think it was him? Why? Has he been living with that stupid idea for eight years? Thinking it was his fault that Felix left? 

Didn’t he get it? When Felix left him the ring? Didn’t he...should he have...would a letter have been better? But he didn’t even know how to vocalize his feelings, let alone write them down. And who knows where he would have found ink and parchment in the Imperial palace? 

Fuck. Felix falls onto the bed and hides his face in a pillow. Why are the words so hard to say? It’s Sylvain. It’s Sylvain, who he would have given his life for. Who he would have given his life  _ to _ . Why can’t he find the words to tell him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault? 

The idea that Sylvain has lived with the idea that Felix left because of him makes him feel like a hole has opened in his chest, raw and bloody and gouged all the way through.

Fuck, is he crying? He might actually be crying. He can feel wet warmth in his eyes and he blinks it away. How long has it been since he cried? Really cried? He doesn’t think he cried when his father died. When he learned about Glenn, maybe? He’d cried then. He might have cried the night he decided to leave.

And he’s crying now, little teardrops that are buried into a pillow so they never even see the light. He sucks in breath after breath so not a single sob, not a single whisper of a whimper can escape his lips. 

It wasn’t your fault Sylvain. It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t your fault. Goddess, Felix must be the worst person alive, to make Sylvain think that this was in any possible way because of him. 

It’s right he left. He’s not a good enough person to deserve the happy ending he dreamed about. He’s not good and he’s not good enough and he doesn’t know why he’s even trying to fool himself anymore. He’s a blade, a weapon, and weapons only know how to hurt. 

Crying is exhausting and disorienting. Felix isn’t really sure how much time passes. He becomes aware of the creaking of the door, and then four little paws placed on his back. The mattress dips when Sylvain sits beside him, and then gentle fingers pass over the place on his arm where Sylvain had grabbed him earlier. 

“Did I hurt you?” Sylvain asks, sounding wretched. Felix keeps his face buried in the pillow but shakes his head. 

“I’m sorry,” Sylvain says after a few terrible, awkward moments. Mira hops off of Felix and pads away across the bed. Probably going to attack their documents. “Felix, I’m sorry. I won’t ask you to see Dimitri or anyone else. It’s your life and…” He inhales, shaky, and exhales, shakier. “Your choices. I need to respect that.” He shifts a little closer. “And I’m sorry I grabbed you. That’s not who I want to be. Especially to you.”

Felix doesn’t know what to say. Especially to him? What does that mean? 

“Felix?” Sylvain tries again after another few minutes have passed, “Can you...just look at me, please? So I know you’re okay?”

“I’d rather not,” Felix answers into the pillow. He can’t have Sylvain seeing his red eyes and knowing he was crying. No way in hell. He needs to turn the conversation around so he’s not the focus. “Why would it have been your fault?” he asks, and then repeats the question because he knows it came out muffled. “Why would it have been your fault?” 

“What else would it have been?” Sylvain answers, and now he just sounds exhausted. “You never talked about becoming a mercenary. Not once. Though…” His voice grows pensive. “I guess Leonie mentioned something about making plans. At school.” 

Saints, does he have to sound so personally offended? Felix turns his head from the pillow but away from Sylvain so his face is still hidden. “We mentioned it maybe once. After sparring a few times. It’s not like we sought each other out.” 

Sylvain grunts and shifts his weight upon the bed. Is he sulking?

Felix scrubs a hand over his eyes and flips about. “You think I chose Leonie over you?”

Luckily, Sylvain is too busy sitting with his arms crossed and staring at the floor to notice any trace of tears. “Well, I didn't, until just now!”

“Saints.” Felix rolls onto his back and covers his face with both hands. “No, I didn’t choose Leonie over you. I didn’t choose... _ this _ ...over you. I…”

I think you know how I felt, Sylvain. 

“Well!” Sylvain blurts out, and through his fingers, Felix watches him throw his arms out in frustration. “What could I think? I said...I said that I wanted it...us...for forever, and the next morning you were gone!”

Felix sits up so fast he goes a little dizzy and grabs Sylvain’s arm, yanking him close and across the bed. “I would have taken you with me, idiot! But I knew you would stay. I knew you...you…” Sylvain’s eyes lock on his own and widen and Felix knows he’s been caught out for crying. “You were always going to stay,” he finishes, a little quieter. “You were always going to stay, to help Dimitri, to rebuild this society.” He lets go of Sylvain’s arm, lets him sit up on the bed with legs crossed, one hand stretched out as if to take Felix’s but too scared to make that jump. Felix studies the patterns of a quilt rather than let Sylvain gleam any more secrets from his expression. “You always cared so much about that. Crests and stuff. About how they ruined your life. And you’re…” He swallows hard. “You’re a good person, Sylvain. Always have been, even when you were pretending otherwise. You were always going to stay to make sure Dimitri would be king, that the nobility would be dissolved, that the importance of Crests would fade away.” He welcomes the arrival of dusk, winter sun clipping beneath the horizon bit by bit. “I wasn’t going to ask you to leave with me. Because I...I know how you felt, and I didn’t want to force you to make that decision.” He takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes. “And I didn’t want to hear you say no. So I left, and it wasn’t because of you. It was without you, and it was one of the most miserable things I’ve ever done, so don’t go thinking you scared me off with promises of forever. I don’t scare that easier, Gautier.”

Or so he wishes. 

It’s a long minute that passes between them, only broken by their own breathing and the soft sounds of the mattress shifting beneath them. And then Sylvain’s fingers alight upon his jaw, the sensation more vivid than any sword strike. His hands cup Felix’s face, fingers trailing up into his hair. His voice, when he speaks, is immeasurably sad, like he’s forgotten completely what a smile is. “But I wasn’t enough for you to stay.” 

That’s not fair, Sylvain. I was only doing what you were—the best for our country. Why is it all I feel is guilt for something I didn’t want to do? 

Felix breathes in and feels his lip tremble. “Then just trust that my reason for leaving was greater than my own desires.” He risks opening his eyes, locks his with Sylvain’s. “I know...damn it...I know it’s unfair to ask, but please trust me…”

The sun has not yet disappeared enough so Sylvain’s hair does not look like fire, so his eyes don’t gleam their warm toffee, so every line and freckle of his face is not perfect in the relief of the sunset streaming through the windows. He doesn’t close his eyes as he leans forward and Felix does not back away.

It has been eight years since they promised each other a kiss. And it feels like his whole life Felix has been imagining what it would be like. Sylvain’s hands are so soft, so gentle, his lips ever so chapped as he brushes them softly against Felix’s, and then he tilts their heads slightly so noses are no longer an obstacle, his own eyes falling half-closed, almost hazy. Felix sits quite still with eyes wide open, just letting Sylvain kiss him. He doesn’t know what to do to respond. 

He’d kept his promise. Always waiting for Sylvain’s kiss, even when he knew it would never come. It was the least he could do for the boy he left behind. 

Sylvain frowns and then leans back, nose brushing against Felix’s cheek. “I’m sorry. I thought…” He draws even further back, hands beginning to slip away. “I thought we both wanted that, but you don’t…” 

“I-I-I do!” Felix protests when he can make his lips work again and then feels himself go pink at how eager that had sounded. “I just...don’t know what to do.” He mentally slaps himself and looks away. 

Sylvain’s hands stop sliding away from his face and instead one hand clutches fingers in the hair at the back of his neck while the other splays ink splattered fingers across his cheek. “You don’t know how to kiss?” Sylvain asks, voice rough. 

Felix shrugs. “Never found the use for it. But if...if you’ve been feeling so starved for...starved for…” The word ‘insatiable’ teeters on the tip of his tongue but he cannot force it out. He is the one who is starved for this. The insatiable one. 

Sylvain waits patiently for him to finish the sentence, but it just peters into nonexistence. “Felix?” 

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to kiss?” 

The hand in his hair prevents him from simply nodding or shaking his head. Felix breathes in and out slowly, trying to ignore the way his hands are shaking at his sides. “...yes.”

“Thank the Goddess,” Sylvain mutters, and kisses him. Kisses him and kisses him and doesn’t seem to mind Felix has no idea what to do with his mouth. When Felix tries to experiment and open his mouth up just a little, he feels Sylvain smile and go even slower, using his own lips and tongue and hands on Felix’s face to show him wordlessly how to do what he’s trying to do. 

“‘S nice,” Felix admits, and then his body is wracked by a shudder when Sylvain goes on the offensive and kisses beneath his jaw. The sun is disappearing fast now, just the barest of light on the far wall. He knows he should stop. He needs to stop. He’s going to wake up years from now with memories of these kisses lingering in his dreams and it will hurt that much more for knowing they were once real. But for now, the slight scratch of Sylvain’s beard down his neck is tortuous and he never wants it to stop. Sylvain chuckles when Felix shivers again, and Felix frowns before gripping a knee hard on each side of Sylvain’s body and flipping them in an instant. Sylvain lands with a gasp amongst the pillows with Felix’s arms bracketing his head, and then Felix dips down and tries out this whole neck-kissing thing for himself. Can’t be that hard, right? 

And it isn’t. Actually, having Sylvain beneath him, breathing hard and moaning while Felix explores the spot beneath his ear, the line of his jaw, sucks gently at his pulsepoint and then bites little kisses that won’t leave a mark right to where that white shirt is so frustratingly buttoned closed, is more intoxicating than the headiest alcohol Felix has ever tasted. He lets his hands roam through Sylvain’s hair, down his face, studying his nose and the feel of his eyelashes, brushing his lips while Felix’s are otherwise occupied. Sylvain gets his hands up under Felix’s shirt and kneads at where his waist dips in, nothing sexual about it but a simple reciprocation to make Felix feel good...it’s too much. Felix scoots up to kiss the tip of Sylvain’s nose and then collapses on top of him, face hidden in his neck. Is he still shaking? He thinks he might be shaking. Sylvain doesn’t say anything about it. Just takes his hands from Felix’s waist so he can hug him more securely, rocking a little back and forth. 

“So, um...what do you think of kissing?” Sylvain asks once Felix has stopped shaking quite so hard. 

Felix smiles and brushes his lips against Sylvain’s neck. “Your technique could use some work.” 

“You are such an ass.”

“Mmm.” Another kiss to Sylvain’s neck. Felix likes this, likes making Sylvain feel good. If he could make up for the last eight years by kissing, he thinks he would. He relishes each shudder, each gasp, every whisper of his name as he finds the spots up and down Sylvain’s neck that provoke the best reactions, runs his hands down Sylvain’s arms until he can thread their fingers together, spends his time laying gentle lips along his cheekbones and down his nose. The arousal is hot in his stomach, but the lazy pleasure of this simple kissing is more than enough. 

They were arguing before this. He would give his all to Sylvain, except for the shameful truth. A truth to a person who has never judged him for any of his other truths, who washed the blood from his hands and promised him forever. 

But this truth has to stay secret. Sylvain would be so disappointed in him, and Felix can’t stand to imagine the look in his eyes if he found out. 

“It wasn’t you,” Felix mumbles against Sylvain’s pulse. “Why I left. It had nothing to do with you. Believe me.” 

Sylvain doesn’t do anything at all for a moment, and then he places firm hands on Felix’s back and slowly sits upright. Felix slumps into his lap, legs shifting to frame Sylvain in between. He casts his gaze aside and hides half his face behind one hand. The other hand worries in the fabric of Sylvain’s shirt. If nothing else, he will leave Sylvain this time with no such misunderstanding.

“If it had nothing to do with me, then what was it?” Sylvain asks, fingers kneading at his shoulder blades. “What...what would make you leave like that? Did...did someone threaten you or something?”

Felix shoots him a dirty look. Like anyone who threatened him wouldn’t have been kebabed on the spot. “No. No one threatened me. It’s…” He groans and tears his head from his face, runs it agitatedly through his hair. “It’s a reason you won’t understand but it makes sense to me, and I need to ask you to accept that.”

He knows Sylvain wants to argue more, but he swallows the words down and nods. “Alright. I accept it. Even if I don’t like it.”

Felix stares at him and the slump of his shoulders. Swords are only meant to hurt. And right now he’s the sharpest sword in all of Fódlan. “I had to leave,” he says wretchedly.

“It’s...fine,” Sylvain says, and it’s not, but then Sylvain’s hand travels to his jaw and he’s being kissed again, deep and long and soft. “You could stay this time,” Sylvain whispers when he pulls the tiniest bit away. Kisses him again. “Stay with me this time.” 

Felix kisses him back, savors the feeling, but then drops his head and shakes it. “That’s nonsense.” 

“No. No.” Sylvain chases his mouth for another kiss and gets exactly what he wants. “Not nonsense.” Another kiss. “We don’t even have to tell anyone you’re here, if you don’t want. You can just...stay here with me and we can...we can…” 

Felix’s mouth twists. “So I can hide away here and be your secret…?”

Lover? Is that what he would be? Would a few kisses qualify him as a secret lover? Or do they have to fuck? In the end, he just ends the statement with ‘secret’. He doesn’t know what he would be. 

“That does sound bad,” Sylvain admits. “But I can’t just...have you  _ back  _ and then lose you again. I can’t. Please stay, Felix. Please.” A kiss to the forehead. 

Felix sighs. “This is exactly why I never wanted to see you again.” He kisses Sylvain again, just so he doesn’t get the wrong idea, wraps his arms around his torso. “You ask me to stay so I can be your little secret for the rest of my life? Sylvain, that’s just...a prison. A comfortable one, but still a prison. You know I can’t accept that.”

Sylvain nods and kisses the corner of his mouth. “I knew it. But I had to ask.” Another kiss. “I was so angry at you for leaving when you got here but I think I always knew I’d end up asking you to stay.” 

“And you know that I can’t. Right?” 

“I can understand it’s your choice, no matter what my opinion is.”

Felix nods. “Thank you.” He unlocks his arms from around Sylvain’s waist and uses his freed hands to tip Sylvain’s face up for another kiss. “Thank you.” 

Sylvain hums into the kiss and rearranges Felix in his lap, one hand straying to his thigh. His touch is like a burn. “So what now?” What now, when they’ve established that, like the moon, Felix is always going to disappear, but this time he won’t come back? What now, that they know what their ending will be and that it isn’t a fairytale?

Felix shivers as the hand moves slowly up his thigh. Kisses Sylvain again, who grins into the kiss. “I think...I think maybe we could wait until the roads are in a little better condition. Ice and all that.”

“Yeah, ice.” 

Felix slaps a hand down on Sylvain’s to keep it in place so he can think coherently for a second. “But then Fhirdiad.” 

“Fhirdiad,” Sylvain agrees, other sneaky hand stealing up the back of Felix’s shirt because he’s an asshole, fingers leaving a trail of goosebumps. “And what do you suppose we do in those few days we wait for the ice to melt?” 

Felix chuckles as much he can with that hand up his shirt and nips at Sylvain’s bottom lip. Arousal and happiness and regret swirl in his stomach and he can’t decide which is winning but kissing Sylvain seems to be the antidote to all three. “I would have had you forever,” he says. “Can we try to match forever in the time it takes for ice to melt?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Aaaand this is where the porny stuff starts. Be forewarned.

Sylvain is out of practice and he knows it, but Felix doesn’t seem to notice. At least one reason he can be glad they never made it this far eight years ago. No basis for comparison. He keeps Felix cradled in his lap for a long while, just enjoying the kissing, letting his hands wander. Learning the places that make Felix croon for more, that make him shudder, all those places he’d yearned to discover so long ago. And the art of seduction comes back to him, it really does, although he never actually slept with a quarter of the girls people think he did, and definitely never any chickens, thank  _ you _ Seteth. Felix definitely wants to do the same, the touching, hands lighting on Sylvain’s neck and shoulders and daring to slide up the bottom of his thighs before he rethinks that and threads his fingers through Sylvain’s hair instead. Eventually, Sylvain pulls his mouth away from Felix’s neck and mutters about wanting a lamp. Felix doesn’t let go. 

“I can’t carry you,” Sylvain reminds him, and recalls how much stronger he’d been once. “Not anymore at least. Let me light a lamp.”

Felix huffs but rolls out of Sylvain’s lap. Sylvain catches him by the shoulder and kisses his cheek one more time before scooting down the bed and lighting fire in his palm. The lamp casts a soft glow over the whole bed and also illuminates the small black shadow patiently licking up the mess of cat food from earlier. “I’d been wondering why I hadn’t been mauled in so long,” Sylvain says, and Felix goes to scoop Mira up. 

“So…” he says as he hugs the kitten close, “What is it we’re actually doing? Besides kissing. Or are we only kissing?” Goddess, an itinerary. Probably with checkmarks for completion so Felix can make sure he’s the best at all of them. 

“I guess we can map things out,” Sylvain agrees, and pats the bed welcomingly. Felix returns with Mira and teases her with his hand while he watches Sylvain with hawk eyes. Sylvain blows out air and tries to think. He’d never really made plans with people in the past, just sort of let things go where they went, but none of those trysts had ever really mattered and this is one thing he doesn’t want to screw up. He’s already screwed up so many things with Felix. “Alright, so what are you comfortable with doing?” 

“Kissing.” Felix nods firmly and it’s so fucking authoritative and adorable Sylvain could die. “Lots of time devoted to that, if we can.”

“Okay,” Sylvain squeaks, trying to hold off on the dying, “Besides kissing, what are you comfortable with? Like handjobs, blowjobs...um...fingers...using your...you know…”

“Sylvain,” Felix says with a smile an odd mix of embarrassment and bemusement, “I run with a bunch of mercs. A lot of them are men who liked releasing tension. And then they talk about it. I can handle it if you say ‘fingers up my ass’ or argue about the best kind of oil to ease the way.” They both go a little pink at that, staring straight at each other, and Felix clears his throat far louder than necessary and declares, “But I like kissing.” He blinks, but doesn’t even wince when Mira catches his hand and proceeds to eat it. “Haven’t ever tried the…” He coughs. “...the other stuff. Have you had sex? I mean, I know you have, but have you had sex with a man before?”

Sylvain shrugs. “Yeah.” Seteth hadn’t been exaggerating there. Just with the chickens. “Not recently though.” 

“Not recently.” A grin tugs at Felix’s lips. 

“I’ve had a dry spell,” Sylvain answers hotly, and doesn’t add that he means eight years. Not that he couldn’t have! He just never...felt like it. “But it comes back to you. Like riding a pegasus.” 

“We’re both terrible at flying.”

“Don’t you talk. Didn’t you fall off the back of Ingrid’s mount that one time?”

“I thought we all agreed to absolute secrecy about that!”

Sylvain kisses him. Felix goes quiet, but only for a moment. “If I’m going to putting your dick in my mouth, you’re having a bath first,” Felix mumbles against his lips, and it’s enough to pull a laugh out of Sylvain. Felix grins back and pulls his finger from Mira’s mouth. “First things first, though, do you think they had dinner without us?” 

Sylvain grimaces. With both their doors closed? Yeah, his staff had probably chosen to eat alone. But he’d be extremely surprised if Ms. Adelaide hadn’t provided for them in some way. “Let’s find out.” He plucks at Felix’s collar and goes to scrounge up towels and some of his mother’s fancy soap. “We can heat the water for a bath while we’re down there.” 

It turns out that potato soup had been left over the fire for them, even if the rest of the mansion seems shut down for the evening. Sylvain insists on being the one to lug the bathtub out again and begin filling it with water while Felix scrounges for the bread and cheese. Mira is set free to say hello to her mother. At some point Felix glances over from slicing bread and doling out soup and raises an eyebrow. “You can make fire, right?” Why not heat water in the bathtub directly?” Sylvain stares at the bucket of icy cold water in his hands, and then at the large empty tub. “If you just heat it evenly it should be fine,” Felix adds, biting off a piece of cheese and speaking around it. “It’s tin, right? One of my men lugs a tin frying pan around for cooking. I’ve also seen him kill someone with that frying pan though, so no one has been eating what he makes lately. Apparently it tastes like brains, though I want to know how they can make the comparison.” 

Sylvain sloshes the water into the tub and crouches down so he can light a fire in his palm and hold it to the underside of the tub. “Can’t hurt to try. The heating I mean. Not the brain food.” 

The end result is Sylvain, cross-legged on the floor, periodically moving his hand about the tub to heat the water while Felix sits in front of him feeding him his dinner. Really, he still has one hand free, but not like he was going to refuse when Felix knelt down and offered a spoon of soup. Next time he sees Byleth, he might just fall on his hands and knees and praise her for bothering to teach him how to hurl fireballs. Thank you, oh wise Professor. Thank you for granting me this glorious moment of Felix Hugo Fraldarius leaning forward to feed me bread with cheese and unconsciously opening his own mouth a little as he does so. He’s actually disappointed when Felix sticks a hand in the water and declares it a decent temperature. “The tub itself is a little hot though, so don’t be an idiot.” Felix grabs the towels and soap and places them on the nearest table to the tub and perches up beside them. 

Sylvain pauses at undoing his shirt buttons. “You’re not joining me?”

Felix looks at him skeptically. “Small tub.”

“That’s quitter talk.” 

“I had a bath not long ago.” 

“Well, if I’m going to be sticking your dick in my mouth I want you to have a bath first.” Sylvain grins when Felix shoots him a glare and folds his shirt up. “Tit for tat, Fraldarius.” Plus he’d get to fix Felix’s hair again, which is almost worth it in itself. Felix huffs but hops off the table to start undressing. Sylvain begins undoing his trousers but his hands pause. Should he be so easy stripping all his clothes away? Felix doesn’t seem to have any such reservations. Maybe because he’s already been naked in this tub. He doesn’t look Sylvain’s way while taking his clothes off and setting them on the table. He raises a brow at Sylvain as he sets both hands on the side of the tub and easily hops over into the water, no hobbling or hand holding necessary anymore. He makes an irked expression when water splashes up into his face and Sylvain grins. Fussy. But Felix soon moves to one end of the tub and waits for Sylvain with an equally amused expression. 

“You’re getting bashful now?”

“What? No!” Sylvain strips his trousers off as well as his underclothes and stumbles towards the tub. He’s a lot less graceful clambering into the tub, but he manages. Felix laughs, not unkindly, face lit by the flames flickering healthily in the fireplace. Sylvain rolls his eyes with a smile, curling up his legs so he can fit on the opposite side of the tub. Their feet tangle together in the middle and Sylvain reaches out to take Felix’s hand, bend over and kiss it. Felix’s expression goes soft, that wonderfully rare expression that is so precious for that rarity. He shifts onto his knees and crowds into Sylvain’s space. A wet hand tangles in Sylvain’s hair and then Felix is kissing him again. It’ll take more practice before he’ll be ‘good’ at kissing, but he makes up for it with enthusiasm. Sylvain’s hands slide down Felix’s sides until they settle at his waist, always so slim. But this time, unlike the last bath where Sylvain was preoccupied with Felix’s wound and then his hair, Sylvain can take the time to explore Felix’s body, something Felix moans along to and deepens his kisses. Slim waist, scar along his belly, but each limb a rope of muscle. Everywhere is muscle, actually, especially his arms. Doubtless the result of swinging a sword over and over and over. A few new scars Sylvain hadn’t noticed before now. One on Felix’s right bicep. A longer one snaking up a leg. Sylvain doesn’t ask. He’s sure the answer is that Felix got careless but will never admit to it. There’s the arrow mark from where he took a hit for Mercedes. A burn mark on his back from shielding Ashe from a mage’s attack. Sylvain’s fingers explore them all. 

Felix’s free hand lands on Sylvain’s arm, so weak and untoned compared to Felix. “Ah…” Sylvain sighs, turning his face away from kisses, “You might be a little disappointed there.” 

Felix continues to trail his hand down Sylvain’s arm. “Disappointed you’ve left yourself so defenseless, yes, absolutely. What are you going to do after I’m no longer around to pretend to be your guard, huh? And how the hell did you survive until now?” He leans back to stare at Sylvain accusingly. “Actually, I know why. Because I’ve been watching your border like a hungry wolf at a chicken hut, making sure bandits didn’t get through. But if you’re going to insist on not employing a guard, you need to get back into practice. Regardless…” He kisses Sylvain’s cheek. “I don’t think there is a single part of your body I could find unattractive, so take that stupid, self-pitying look off your face. It’s not like your arms turned to noodles. Teach me how to give a handjob. Do I just grab it?”

Having just examined the fantastic muscles of Felix’s forearm, the idea of just being grabbed is slightly terrifying. “Ah, no, no, just...you know when you...you masturbate sometimes, right?” 

Felix’s face is already pink from the warm bath, but he goes a little more red. “Sometimes. So it’s just like that except I get you off? Seems too easy.” 

“Most of sex is easy.” 

Felix scowls. “No, I know that. It’s just...I thought sex with you would be harder. But we were yelling at each other this afternoon and now we’re in the bath together about to...do stuff. If it was this easy, why didn’t we get this far during the war? Why didn’t we kiss when we were students? If it’s this damn simple, why did we make it so complicated?”

Because you’re difficult and I’m an asshole. But Sylvain won’t say that, not to someone about to take his genitals in hand. “We were stupid,” he answers instead, and widens his legs so he can tug Felix between them, warm skin slippery against warm skin. But they get settled once Sylvain closes his knees around Felix and grabs him around the waist again, steadying. He feels their cocks brush against each other in the water, both starting to get hard, and bites at his lip, and Felix pushes his hair from his face in distraction. He grabs Sylvain’s shoulder hard and stares at him, breath coming a little too fast to pass as casual. “Here,” Sylvain says, and guides Felix’s free hand down between them until calloused fingers catch at his cock. Then Sylvain focuses on holding Felix steady while Felix explores the possibilities of giving a handjob. 

He does explore too. Fingers tentative, stroking gently up and down the length, playing at the head, tracing the upward curvature of his erection and the vein that runs along the underside. Sylvain works to keep his breathing steady, trying to ignore the rowdy orchestra in his head screaming that this is Felix, this is Felix, this is Felix actually,  _ finally _ touching him! Thank you Goddess, for all I might not have really believed in you, for giving me this, thank you, thank you, thank you. And then Felix actually closes his fist around his cock and Sylvain has no more thoughts to waste on the Goddess. 

“Good?” Felix asks, and hums happily when Sylvain nods and leans forward to rest his head on Felix’s shoulder. He twists his hand and starts moving faster. Sylvain kisses the skin at the junction of neck and shoulder and tightens his hold on Felix’s waist. Yes, it’s good. Not like he’s been getting himself off to memories of Felix for eight years now or anything. Felix settles into a steady rhythm, not angling for the quickest orgasm but a steady building pleasure. The heat of the water around them, gently sloshing to and fro in the tub, makes everything rosy gold.

“Felix?” he mumbles after a few minutes. 

“Yes?” 

“You should probably stop.” Saints, those are painful words to say, but Felix does stop immediately. 

“Did I hurt you?”

“Nah.” Sylvain raises his head and kisses him. “Just didn’t want to dirty the bathwater yet.” He smiles, erection almost painful between his legs. “Still have to get clean, right?” 

Felix absolutely preens at the idea he almost made Sylvain orgasm. “Alright.” He leans out of the tub to grab the soap and tosses it at Sylvain. “Clean up.” 

“You too.” Sylvain twirls a finger around and Felix rolls his eyes but turns so Sylvain can undo his tie and braids and guide his head back onto his folded legs so he can wet his hair and lather it with soap without dropping him into the water. It’s perfect, especially when Felix shuts his eyes with a little sigh. Felix gets him back of course, climbing into Sylvain’s lap and digging soapy fingers into his hair. He dumps a handful of water on Sylvain’s head and kisses him while Sylvain is trying to wipe the soap from his eyes. 

“I love your hair,” Felix mutters, actually looking embarrassed by the confession. “It’s so easy to see.” 

“ _ That’s  _ why you like my hair? Because it’s bright?” 

“I could always get up high and look out at the battlefield and see you,” Felix explains, and dumps more water on top of his head. “So yeah, because it’s bright. And you were always being stupid and gallant but mostly stupid, so I had to run and save your ass a lot. Fuuu—Sylvain!” He lands in the water on the opposite side of the tub with a lot of swearing and thrashing of limbs. It’s hilarious, even when Felix resurfaces and gives Sylvain the silent treatment for five minutes for tossing him like that. Sylvain rinses the rest of his hair and cleans everywhere else while Felix sullenly does the exact same. “Is your cock clean?” Felix finally asks. 

Sylvain stares downwards and gives the soapy water a quizzical look. “Hmm. Yes. Yes, I think it is up to your cleanliness standards.” He grins at Felix. “Come here. I won’t dunk you again. Promise. Okay, so just…” He gets Felix situated in his lap and pulls him closer until he can close a hand around both their cocks. Felix gasps and one his hands splashes down to join with Sylvain’s. Their fingers slip past each other until Felix’s hand is fit over Sylvain’s, guiding the gentle rhythm up and down. 

“Fuck,” Felix grunts, and kisses Sylvain a little too rough, a bit too much tongue and teeth but Sylvain doesn’t mind. If Felix is losing control, that means he’s doing his job. And his job is making sure Felix’s first assisted orgasm—as far as he understands—is the best it can be. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks between kisses. 

Felix gives him an unimpressed look. “You need to ask that at this point?” 

“Yeah, okay.” Sylvain lets go of their cocks to grab Felix’s thighs and shift their positions, Felix landing on the opposite side of the tub once again, but now with Sylvain on top and a big splosh of water out of the tub. He links his ankles around Sylvain’s hips to stay above water, droplets running down his face like tears. Sylvain cradles his head against the hard bathtub, fingers massaging into the dark hair floating loose. “Touch yourself,” he says, more a suggestion than an order but Felix does so anyway. 

“You?” he asks, eyes hooded and almost sleepy. At this position, there’s no way he can fit both of them into his hand. 

Sylvain sucks kisses from his shoulder up to the underside of his jaw, earning little groans the entire way. “I won’t have any trouble, believe me. I could come just watching you like this.” 

“Saints, Sylvain,” Felix moans, and trembles as his fist moves faster along his cock. “Don’t just say...oh…” 

Sylvain trails his free hand up one of Felix’s legs and cups his ass. He remembers this feeling  _ really good _ when he’d been fooling around with guys. He takes Felix’s earlobe in his teeth and wonders if it feels good, for Felix the lone wolf, for Felix the trained blade, for Felix Hugo Fraldarius to give up his power like this and put his trust in someone else, if only for an orgasm. He hopes so. Felix tenses as fingers dip between his cheeks, but a careful few minutes of Sylvain running his hand back and forth ends with him relaxing in Sylvain’s hold, his arm that had slacked off picking up speed on his cock once more. Sylvain kisses the corner of his eye, the tip of his nose, the side of his mouth, and finally those swollen lips as he strokes a single finger against Felix’s hole. “So good, Fe,” he whispers with a stronger stroke, just feeling inside with the tip of a finger. “So good, perfect, perfect, Felix…” He feels the convulsion as Felix comes, no warning, back arching and legs thrashing. He had finished quick, but who didn’t as a virgin? Sylvain snatches Felix to him and grabs his cock when both of Felix’s hands become preoccupied with scratching desperately at Sylvain’s back. He buries his face in Felix’s neck and strokes him through his orgasm, whispering more praises against his wet skin. He might have guessed it was someone finally telling Felix he was good enough that would do it. Finally—as if the word ‘finally’ can convey how precious each moment is—Felix calms down, clinging to Sylvain like a barnacle. Sylvain takes his hand from Felix’s cock and clings back, eyes shut, savoring Felix’s heavy breathing and the way he shudders with aftershocks. The water around them is gross now, of course, but Sylvain doesn’t give a damn. He’s so close after witnessing Felix’s orgasm that one sneaky hand stuck between them has his own come released into the tub. His mouth opens in a gasp of pleasure and Felix takes the opportunity to kiss him, mouth lazy and movements sluggish. 

“Sylvain,” he says, and then buries his face in Sylvain’s neck, which must be his favorite place since he keeps returning to it. Sylvain smiles and stokes his hair. 

“We should get out.” 

Felix nods. Sylvain wishes he was still a strong young cavalier, but he can’t lift Felix and get out of the tub without dying at the same time. He extricates himself from Felix’s grasp, which is more difficult than it would sound, and then clambers out of the tub, legs slightly shaky. Felix is even worse, still visibly shaking as Sylvain wraps him in a towel and guides him to sit down in a chair. Sylvain dresses quickly, shaking his hair out over the tub, and begins the unsavory process of emptying the tub of water mixed with come. He would have just left it if it weren’t for that last unsavory detail for Ms. Adelaide to discover in the morning. Felix snaps out of his daze about halfway through and dresses quickly so he can help. His hair is still soaking wet and drips all over his shirt. Eventually the tub is empty, and Sylvain drags Felix up the stone steps of the spiral kitchen stairs to the second story. They collapse together in Felix’s bed. Sylvain laughs breathlessly at the reality of what just happened. Felix glances around the bed and frowns. “Mira.” 

The kitten. “I’ll get her,” Sylvain says, starting to slide out of bed, but Felix’s hand on his sleeve stops him. 

“She’s with her mother. We can get her tomorrow morning.” Felix tugs on his sleeve more insistently and Sylvain obeys until Felix can latch onto him again. “That felt nice,” he says and snuggles his face against Sylvain’s chest. 

Sylvain laughs breathlessly and snuggles back. “Good. Glad to hear it.” 

“I’ll make you feel good tomorrow,” Felix promises. 

Sylvain laughs again and begins wringing out Felix’s hair. “Trust me, I felt good. I felt really good.” 

“Mmm.” Felix relaxes into him, and within moments Sylvain can tell that he’s asleep by his breathing. He kisses Felix’s forehead and takes five minutes to free himself from the hug so not to wake him. He goes to his own washroom to brush his teeth and shave while he has the time to be careful about it, and then, in the fading lamplight, yanks the blankets out from under Felix—he wakes up for a moment, but only to complain for about ten seconds about being disturbed—so they can curl up beneath them together. Felix’s face is relaxed, his body one big flop. It’s so easy for Sylvain to scoop him into his arms. 

If it’s this damn simple, why did we make it so complicated? 

Saints, Felix, you’re right. 

If things had been different, would Felix still have left? Sylvain can’t know, especially if Felix still won’t say why he ran. How shameful can it be that Felix still has to hide it so many years later? Whatever it was, Sylvain doubts anyone could still be angry over it. But there had been a reason, and they’d all missed it, and then Felix had been gone. 

The problem, Sylvain thinks as he hugs Felix closer, is that Felix has always relied only on himself, and the rest of them learned to see him as self-sufficient as well. Of course Felix could handle it. Felix could handle anything! So a problem had shown up in the midst of the war, and Felix had looked into a future where everyone was too busy to notice he actually couldn’t handle everything, a future where he walked alone, stumbling and falling, because no one had realized he needed someone to hold out a hand to help.

Thinking of it that way, Sylvain feels guiltier than ever. Even if it wasn’t his fault, as Felix says, he should have noticed. Whatever this thing was that Felix decided he couldn’t handle on his own, Sylvain should have noticed. But Felix was always good at hiding when things were bothering him—really bothering him—because he always acted like he was bothered by everything. 

So sure. Maybe if they’d been sleeping together by the time the war ended, things could have been different. Maybe Felix would have trusted him enough with this problem of his. Maybe Sylvain would have been better at reading the signs. But they’d been little idiots dancing around each other when kissing would have been so much nicer and thinking about the possibilities won’t help. Felix left. He’s here for a few short days, and then they’re off to Fhirdiad so he can get a clue on Leonie’s location and leave Sylvain behind once again, because at the end of the day, Felix will always leave, and Sylvain has no right to stop him. So he’ll say nothing, and take these few short days, and hope that wherever he might go, Felix can be happy. Because Sylvain loves him. And maybe one day, far from now, Sylvain will feel a skip in his heart and know that it’s time, that Felix has died and it’s his turn now, because no matter how far apart, they just can’t live without the other. 

Which sounds awful, quite frankly, but Sylvain doesn’t know what else to do. He’s not the person to change Felix’s mind. The only person who might have had the slightest chance at changing Felix’s mind on something he’s so set on has been dead for almost twenty years. But if Glenn were still around, this whole mess wouldn’t have happened at all. The only things Sylvain has ever been able to offer Felix are blanket forts and stories about good luck flowers and how thunder was just the Goddess throwing a tantrum. Glenn was the one who made actual good things happen, and maybe part of the reason Sylvain never went to see Felix in those four years after Duscur was not just because he feared his father but because he knew his stories couldn’t fix anything and that he could never be a replacement for Glenn.

I’m sorry, Glenn. I know he’s hurting, and I’m hurting too, and you always did everything to make sure we were both alright. I know you took it upon yourself to give Felix all that extra love he should have gotten from your dead mother. I know you took it upon yourself to be the older brother I never had in Miklan. You were a proper knight down to your very soul, long before you bore the title, and things would be so much better if you were here. 

I would watch Felix walk away from me a thousand times never to return if he were doing it at your side.

Sylvain sniffs and rubs at his eyes. Somehow, it always returns to Duscur. Somehow, for Felix, it always returns to Glenn. And nothing Sylvain can do will make that better. 

At least this time before he leaves, Felix will get the chance to say a proper goodbye to some of their friends in Fhirdiad. Ashe and Ingrid at least. Ashe, Sylvain knows, won’t try to upset the delicate balance of their reunion at all. Ingrid will try to convince Felix to stay but she’ll have to understand in the end. That they’re all grown up now and she’s not Felix’s keeper. That she left her own family to become a knight and Felix left them and now serves the country too, if in a slightly shadier way. Galatea lands, or at least what were Galatea lands before they became part of the Commonwealth, have certainly benefited from Felix and his mercenary crew hanging around the area. She can’t begrudge him for the quality of his work. 

And then poof, gone. Right back out of Sylvain’s life like these past few weeks never even happened, only memories left behind. 

Sylvain holds Felix tighter in the safety of the bed. Makes it a memory. So that years from now, he can still close his eyes and remember how it felt to be this happy. 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of red. Red cloak, red tunic, red hair now grown long and wavy past Ferdinand’s shoulders as he stands before them on the Bridge of Myrddin, defenseless but for his blind hope they will not kill him. And they won’t, of course. Every person they can sway to their side is one less they need to kill, and everyone is a big fan of that. 

Seriously, if he didn’t have all his attention taken up by a certain grumpy someone standing at his side, Sylvain might have seriously considered asking Ferdinand to tea. The five years passed might not have been kind to him, but he sure is easy on the eyes. That flash of hair is tossed irritably over a shoulder as Ferdinand continues telling them about how Edelgard has razed his house and name to the ground. “Not that my father was a good prime minister or even a decent man,” Ferdinand finishes, one hand holding his head and the other attached to the reins of his horse, “But being mobbed to death? I cannot stand to pledge my allegiance to the Empire any longer.” The five years that have passed have also made him a little wiser, Sylvain thinks. A little less vain, a little more considerate of the fact others have troubles more serious than choosing between Bergamot and Four Spice. All in all, good changes, although the amount of enthusiasm with which he does absolutely everything—even the act of doing nothing—remains entirely the same, which is reassuring, in a way. This war doesn’t have to ruin you. He’d already offered to ‘scrounge up some tea’ for everyone before this whole conversation began, although he was ashamed to admit he doesn’t have any biscuits. Ingrid had slapped her hand over Felix’s mouth before his derisive laughter even had the chance to begin, hence why he’s being so grumpy. 

Dimitri has long since wandered away from the conversation, probably because it doesn’t involve squashing Edelgard’s skull. Byleth is dutifully hearing Ferdinand out, but Sylvain thinks it’s long been decided they would take him in. Firstly, Ferdinand isn’t capable of lying, so if he says he’ll fight for the Kingdom, that’s that. Second, the lands the Aegir family owned suddenly being under Kingdom control could possibly influence the Gloucester family to switch allegiance. Third, someone is actually offering them post battle refreshments and Sylvain could get used to that. Ferdinand is mid-sentence when Byleth goes and squeezes his shoulder with a little nod. Of course he’s welcome. That little nod has him speechless for about...oh...ten seconds? Ten seconds before he’s gushing his gratitude and again apologizing for the lack of biscuits. Byleth nods and smiles and takes him by the elbow to steer him towards camp, possibly to find him a tent, possibly to find Dimitri and make sure he knows Ferdinand is on the ‘friend’ side of things now so please don’t crush his skull. Felix huffs and goes to stand at the bridge rampart, flicking pieces of stone down into the river. Sylvain joins him after a moment, leaning backwards against the parapet with elbows resting upon it. The sun keeps teasing them, peeking out from behind the clouds and then disappearing again, coy little thing. For a moment Sylvain considers sliding an arm over Felix’s shoulder, decides that’s a bit risky, and then wonders why he wants to do it so damn much. 

Honestly, one of these days he’s going to get his head lopped off in battle with the amount of time he’s spending thinking about Felix for no good reason. Ever since he caught up with Felix on the ride to Garreg Mach, something’s been screwy in his head. Hence why it will get lopped off. 

“Well, if only we could convert everyone from the Empire this easily,” Sylvain says at last, and keeps his arm at his side. 

Felix shrugs. It’s easy to shrug now. When half the forces defending the bridge surrendered, it was a quick battle, hardly any casualties. “It’s not surprising. Ferdinand is…” His brow scrunches, and Sylvain waits for the insult. Vapid. Vain. Has less common sense than a tomato. But instead Felix finishes with, “Earnest. And good. If he disagrees with something, he will not do it. If he agrees with something, he will do it as fervently as he is able. He is an easy person to read.” Another piece of stone is flicked into the river. “It’s refreshing.” 

What a hypocrite. Felix is impossible to read, which is making Sylvain’s head even more screwy. It must be back being in such close quarters at the monastery, that’s it. After five years of barely seeing each other, even on the battlefield, the sudden change of Felix constantly  _ there _ is a change Sylvain has yet to get used to again. That he can eat his meals next to Felix. Sit beside him during strategy meetings. Watch his frowns and smirks and raised eyebrows whenever someone else is talking. They’re all things Sylvain hadn’t really had time to miss, leading the Gautier forces, but now that he has Felix back, it’s like all those years have come back to crush him at once and he misses Felix so fucking much even though they’re standing side by side on this stupid bridge. 

He feels that way about everyone, a little, but none so much as Felix. And it bothers him that he doesn’t know why.

It bothers him also that Felix seems to...not like him. Yes, he can acknowledge they grew a little bit apart in the past five years, but every attempt he makes at getting closer to Felix again is shut down almost as alarmingly quickly as when they’d first started at the Officers Academy, back when Felix hated him. Hated him  _ more _ , at least. Now, Sylvain can be a grown adult and look back and realize he was an even bigger prick than he’d thought at the time—he hopes he’s at least a little better now—and maybe Felix had good reason to hate him, but he can’t remember doing anything egregious lately to make Felix hate him all over again. He’d nearly blasted Sylvain’s head off with Thoron when Sylvain made the mistake of inviting him to spar, and Sylvain most definitely didn’t deserve  _ that _ . 

Goddess, why does his brain keep replaying and replaying that moment of Felix in the air, sword in hand and victory assured, eyes alight as he prepared to pin Sylvain to the dirt? Even if he’d just tried to kill Sylvain with black magic, that moment had been perfect. Painful about a half-second later, but perfect. And this is why his brain is screwy: he glanced across the bridge during the battle to watch Felix pull the same maneuver on some random Empire soldier and felt  _ jealous _ of the man about to die, because Sylvain wants a few more minutes of holding Felix in his lap and his hands feeling the tensed muscles of Felix’s back, another moment his brain keeps helpfully replaying just when it shouldn’t. Like now. With Felix right next to him. He doesn’t need that memory  _ now _ . 

What had they talked about after that? Teasing things, Sylvain thinks. It had been the middle of the night. He can’t remember what his own stupid mouth started running. But he does remember how furious it had made Felix, enough to stomp out of the training grounds and abandon Sylvain completely. Something about girls. It was something about girls, he knows that at least, because nothing ever made Felix more angry than the topic of Sylvain and girls.

Which makes Sylvain worry that, in his youthful dumbassery, he’d really fucked something up. 

Felix tosses another broken piece of masonry into the river far beneath. Sylvain glances around. Yeah, the bridge is empty enough. “Hey Felix?”

“What?” 

Sylvain stares at him and the right words turn into something weird. “Did you know tossing a stone off the Bridge of Myrddin is supposed to grant a wish?”

Felix actually smirks at that. “What, like the Goddess Tower?”

“No, no, no! That’s for couples. This is for everyday wishes.” This is easy. Sylvain likes making up these kinds of stories. Likes making ways the world is better. Some people would say he’s just a compulsive liar and maybe he is—he is far too good at lying for his own comfort—but these are harmless lies, deceptions that make people feel good. Bernadetta would have never accepted his compliments about her book if he hadn’t made up that stuff about a secret admirer, right? That was a good lie. So is this one. He holds up a chunk of stone. “Look, see? You throw the stone, and listen for it hitting the water.” He tosses the stone, shuts his eyes, and listens for the tiny splash. “Count to seven.”

“Why seven?”

“Don’t mess up my count. It’s just seven, okay? There, time’s up!” Sylvain opens his eyes again and declares to the world at large, “I wish that there’s no bear meat for dinner tonight!” 

Felix bites at his lip—was that almost a smile?—and shakes his head. “Idiot.” 

“Well, we’ll see if my wish comes true, won’t we?” Sylvain settles against the parapet once more, content in his knowledge he almost made Felix smile. It’s what gives him the courage to actually ask for the truth. “Felix?”

“Hmm?”

“Did I do something wrong? Please just be honest with me if I did.” 

Felix stops with another piece of stone all lined up to be flicked into the river, brows raised. Was he about to make a wish? “Why do you think you did anything wrong?”

Oh, please Felix. You’re hard to read but I’m better at this than most. “Because you’re mad at me. Maybe you even hate me. So what did I do?” 

“Nothing.” Felix turns his face from Sylvain and there goes the little stone. All the way down, down, down into the water. “I’m not mad at you. I don’t hate you.” 

Five, six, seven. If Felix makes a wish, he doesn’t make it out loud.

Sylvain sighs and rests an elbow upon the jut of the parapet. “Then why do you act like it?” 

Felix glances at him with a murderous eye and pushes away from the rampart. “I need to get clean. I hate having blood on me. The smell is atrocious.” He starts toward camp and stumbles when Sylvain grabs his wrist. 

“ _ Felix _ ,” Sylvain says, trying to convey just how very seriously he’s taking this. He won’t be happy with some brushed off answer. 

And Felix sighs. “Saints, couldn’t you just...why would I hate you? You’re my friend.” 

“Funny way of showing it.” 

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Felix throws his free hand up in exasperation. “I’m a little busy to wake you up with tea and toast every morning! Is that how I’m supposed to show I’m your friend?”

“No! It’s just…” What does he want Felix to do? To seek Sylvain out for fun times out on the town? To arrange dinners together and walks near the pond? 

Maybe it would be nice to simply sit side by side and watch the sun come up sometimes. And Felix could rest his head on Sylvain’s shoulder and smile softly with eyes half-closed when Sylvain leans over to…

...to k—

...to kiss...

Damn it. It happened again.

Felix takes his loosened hold as a chance to break free and stares in confusion at Sylvain. “It’s just what?” 

“It’s just…” Sylvain can’t think of how to finish the sentence, not with his mind’s eye somewhere else completely. Felix would smile at him and it would be so gentle, so easy, when Sylvain takes Felix’s chin in hand and…

“I’m leaving,” Felix announces when Sylvain answers him with silence, and then does just that, with long, irritated strides. Which, yeah, okay. It’s probably best he’s not around right now. Sylvain watches Felix head towards camp, skirting the bulk of the tents for where he’ll have pitched at the edge of things. Easy to slip away when he needs to. For a leader in an army, Felix does his damned hardest to not be a part of that army. Not that Byleth forces him to lead much. She realizes as well as everyone else that Felix is most effective when given the broad orders of ‘attack the right flank’ or ‘take care of the wyvern riders’ without anyone following him around. A lone fighter, an assassin who never makes any attempt to sneak around. Simply a path of corpses to follow to find Felix cleaning his blade at the end. 

And Sylvain is pretty sure he fancies him, whether Felix hates him or not. 

What a dumb word. ‘Fancies’. He ‘fancied’ the pretty girls he saw in town and dated for a week or two. With Felix it goes deeper. Always has. It’s not simpers and a shared sundae. Sylvain likes Felix when he’s frowning. When he’s yawning. When he's bored. When he’s being boorish. Even when he’s aiming Thoron at Sylvain’s head, he’s beautiful in that savagery. 

If Felix ever smiled at him anymore, he’d be beautiful then too, and Sylvain would trade dates with a hundred of the prettiest girls for a smile, just from Felix and just for him. 

That...that’s something different from fancying, isn’t it? 

Anyway, even since arriving back at Garreg Mach, maybe even on the trip down, Sylvain can’t stop thinking about how nice it would be to kiss Felix and it’s seriously hindering him in daily activities. 

Not that he hadn’t thought about it before, five years ago. Imagining what it would be like to kiss someone. But it hadn’t been limited to Felix. Sylvain has thought about Dorothea like that, way back when, about Ignatz too because the idea of paint on his fingers is hot for some reason, and about the Professor like that as well because who hasn’t? But it’d been more of a daydream thing, a vague few seconds of usually very innocent what ifs. It made long classes less tedious to let his mind roam free like that. It’s just...it was never like  _ this _ . 

This wasn’t some passing thought or brief what if. Not a daydream. It was a vision of a real solid future where he really, solidly, kisses Felix Hugo Fraldarius and earns that fucking beautiful smile. His chest aches with the need for it.

Okay, maybe it had always been a little bit like this. At school. It would explain why he’d been so desperate for Felix’s time, for a meal, why he’d made those excuses to get to sleep in Felix’s bed, why he would watch him sleep like a total creep and think about how pretty he was. Oh, Goddess, has he been fancying Felix since their school days? Was that why something about Felix always mattered so much more?

Sylvain groans and hops up onto the edge of the bridge, turning sideways to fit between the dips of the parapet when he scrunches his legs up. It’s hellishly uncomfortable in his armor, but he needs this time to think. He wishes he had someone to talk to. Five years ago, he would have sought out Dimitri, because Dimitri would have listened if not been a lick of help, but His Highness isn’t doing much listening these days. Second would be Ingrid, but he isn’t sure how she’ll take this all of a sudden, not with...well...Glenn...and he’s sure she’d be terrified of Sylvain making a move and ruining things between him and Felix forever. 

Because that’s a thing. That’s a thing Sylvain is thinking about. Because of course he has to realize his feelings at the absolute worst time and there’s no one he can talk to and this is bad, it’s bad, it’s so so so bad…

It’s awful how he doesn’t hear anyone approaching until a hand is laid on his arm, simultaneously freeing him from his circling thoughts and saving him when the shock nearly makes him fall off the bridge. Felix tips his head to the side in bafflement. “Did you get hit on the head? Is that why you’re still here?” 

“Felix,” Sylvain says, and the frantic yammering in his head shuts up because now there’s only one thing he wants to focus on. Felix nods, still probably wondering if Sylvain got clocked by the blunt end of an axe. “Amazing deduction.” He’s clean of blood, dressed in a regular shirt and his trousers now, devoid of his cape and other marks of finery. Like this, he could be any regular soldier. “Come back to camp.”

The statement is enough to drag a smile out of Sylvain. Felix came back for him. 

Felix came back for him. In terms of Fraldarius language, that’s almost as good as a peck on the cheek.

Or something like that. Sylvain might be good, but Fraldarius language is a difficult one. This translation he knows for sure though. “Miss me?” 

Felix rolls his eyes as he drags Sylvain off the rampart and starts towards camp. “Oh, tremendously. No, the Professor wants to have a meeting after nightfall, so you should clean up and eat before that. I saved you some stew but you were off brooding so it’s cold now.” 

“Was I brooding?” Sylvain asks. The part of his heart that’d been hurting seems perfectly alright now. “Then what do you call what you do all day?” 

Felix stops, turns back, mouth opening and shutting like a dying fish. Finally he just crosses his arms and glares. “I saved you stew.” Like that should save him from a lifetime of teasing.

Sylvain grins and bows his head. “You did save me stew. Sorry Felix. Obviously you contemplate the important matters of the world. I simply brood.” 

Felix’s smiles are amazing, but his scowls are perfect too, especially when they’re over something stupid like this. Weird how a scowl makes Sylvain feel so light, adds a bounce to his step, makes him feel like everything is going to be okay. He walks ahead of Felix as they approach camp, glancing around at the fires and horses and tents, a mess of noise and cast aside armor and too many people trying to fit into too small a space. 

“What were you brooding over?” Felix asks, so soft Sylvain wonders if he meant to be heard. 

Sylvain spins around, links his hands behind his head, and saunters backwards as he lies. “I was trying to think if I’d done something to upset you. But if you say I didn’t, then I have to trust that. You’d…” More dangerous territory now. “You’d let me know if I did something to hurt you, right?” 

Felix spins a finger to warn Sylvain to turn back around before he starts tripping over things. “Go right. And you’d know if you pissed me off. Since when have I ever been the type to hold a grudge?” 

“Uhh...forever?” 

“What? Name one example.” 

“Your father.” It’s a low blow, but it shuts Felix up right away aside from a grunt of a point taken. He trails after Sylvain in silence save for the occasional direction on how to get to his tent. 

“That’s me, there.” Felix points at a tent pitched next to a small sapling. It’s messily done, something Sylvain couldn’t have lived with, but Felix never really cared about his room being neat as long as his clothes were tidy. Sylvain ducks inside and smiles again at the bowl of stew waiting on the cot. It’s cold, but he has half of it down his throat before Felix has even entered the tent. No bear meat. Thank you, Bridge of Myrddin. Felix watches for a moment and then sighs and pinches his brow. “What I mean to say is that we both know I’m no good at holding my tongue. If I was mad at you, you’d know it.” He sighs again, more petulantly. “So I’m not mad at you. It’s just...I have a lot on my mind and it might come across as mad. Alright?” 

Sylvain swallows. That’s fair. Felix disguises a lot of emotions as anger. Fear. Grief. Disappointment. 

“So I can’t promise I won’t act like I’m mad, but if I’m actually angry, you’ll know.” Felix stops pinching his brow and meets Sylvain’s eyes. “Alright?” 

Sylvain raises a hand. “So when you tried to kill me that night we sparred…?”

Felix snorts and crosses the tent to where he’s piled the rest of his clothing. He slips off his supple leather boots he wears into battle and slides on the boot that comes up to his thigh. Sylvain had thought it would be a more difficult process, but apparently not. One boot. Two boots. Goddess, that’s hot. Sylvain wants to slide them all the way back down again and worship those perfect legs. Is that a daydream or a future thing? Saints, he hopes it’s a future thing. Felix’s voice drags Sylvain’s attention back to the here and now. “I didn’t try to kill you, moron.” One, two, three hundred belts. Why does Felix wear so many belts? “I knew you’d dodge.” He looks up then, smile like a wolf. “And it was what I needed to win.” 

Yup, that there. That smile. Worth the world twice over.

And yup, Sylvain really, really wants to kiss him. 

In the safety of this poorly constructed tent, the thoughts that had been overwhelming on the bridge are suddenly so very, very small. There’s Felix, and Sylvain wants to kiss him, and that seems like an alright way for things to be. Is it great timing? No, but Sylvain has never had great timing and actually, is there a better time than when you might be about to die to confess your lo—

—feelings? 

Maybe it all boils down to the fact Sylvain can imagine spending the rest of his life with Felix, eating cold stew and talking about how Felix technically hadn’t been trying to kill him that time he shot a magic bolt at Sylvain’s head. He could have that, and only that, and die happy.

Felix finishes affixing his belts and scowls at his cape, flung on the bed next to where Sylvain is sitting. “Can you help me with that? It’s a pain.”

“Anytime.” Seriously, anytime. Sylvain sets aside the bowl of stew and grabs the cloak as he stands. It is sort of a wonky shape, isn’t it? Felix picked some very complicated clothes to go kill people in. But Sylvain helps him attach the cloak in front and fusses with the leather pauldron, which is where things get all bunched up if not done right. Sylvain brushes the stray hair that has gotten caught in Felix’s high collar out of the way and fluffs the fur of the cape. “There. All set.” 

This too, he could do forever. 

That’s all these feelings have to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Ferdinand.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sex chapter. Just as a heads up I guess!  
> Also hey thank you to everyone—new and old—who is reading this. Having a few great people to write for is completely enough to make the work worth it. Kudos and comments are always awesome, but not necessary in any means to know other readers are out there, so a big thanks to all of you.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

The next morning, Sylvain keeps Felix trapped while he redoes the hairdo he’d been so proud of, braids up the sides and the blue ribbon holding the top half up so Sylvain has plenty of hair left to run his hands through. Felix yawns, more bored than tired, through the whole thing and then is completely single-minded in their quest to the kitchen. While Sylvain says good morning to everyone who passes by and lugs the tub back to its place in the closet while being very careful not to think about what they did in that tub last night, Felix tracks down Mira and finds cream for her to lap at. Ms. Adelaide is busy salting pork, but there’s already a pot of porridge on. Mira gets a bit of that too. 

“Could your mercenary group use a cat mascot?” Sylvain asks, watching the kitten eat straight from Felix’s spoon in between Felix’s own bites. Felix stares at Mira and shakes his head with a resigned, woeful expression. 

“She wouldn’t make it. Not with a bad leg. You need to look after her for me.”

Sylvain would point out that this cat fucking hates him, but Felix looks so depressed he just nods and pats Mira briefly on the head. Pat pat. “Of course.” 

The return to the bedroom might be one of the more awkward things Sylvain has done in his life, and that is setting an extremely high bar. Maybe even worse than when he dated Gwendal’s daughter and the man walked in. 

Yeah, when he said Lord Gwendal almost killed him, he meant it.

Felix enters first and lets the cat free while Sylvain shuts the doors, because he’s  _ pretty _ sure they’re not going to just be doing paperwork but not one hundred percent. For a second he groans inwardly because Felix does wander over to the desk, hand skimming the pages of work they’ve done and then he glances at Sylvain. “So what now?” 

Sylvain tries to shrug as casually as he can with useless floppy arms. “Whatever you like.”

Felix’s smile turns wolfish. “Whatever I like, hmm?” He strolls across the room to stand in front of Sylvain, effectively backing him into the closed doors. But the smile isn’t as sharp as it could be, and Felix hesitates as he reaches his hands out, eyes flickering to Sylvain’s and back. 

“It’s just me,” Sylvain says. 

“Why’d you think I’m so damn nervous?” Felix growls in way of reply and stands up on his toes, one hand curling behind Sylvain’s neck and dragging him into a kiss. It’s way better than any of Felix’s early attempts at kissing yesterday, but it’s still all bite. Sylvain curves his spine so Felix doesn’t have to yank on his neck so hard and slides a hand along Felix’s cheek, taking over a little and slowing the kiss down. Nothing to prove. Nothing to be nervous about. 

“Mmm,” Felix mumbles, but it seems contented rather than a complaint, so Sylvain slips another hand around Felix’s waist and tugs him closer. Lazy kisses gravitate them towards the bed, and Felix pushes Sylvain down into the blankets. “Let me.” 

Sylvain lets him. He remembers being so confused half the time when he started sleeping around, what goes where and what feels good and should it still be doing that etc etc. If he’s the blank canvas for Felix to explore, he is completely alright with that. It tickles when Felix’s hair falls over his shoulder and brushes against bare skin as Felix undoes buttons and maps out Sylvain’s chest and stomach. When he shimmies down the bed to continue kisses down Sylvain’s midsection, Sylvain squirms and tries to suck in his stomach. Felix scowls and places a firm hand down right where he’s most bashful. “Don’t.”

“Maybe eating a bit more than I should,” Sylvain says, trying to chuckle it away, but Felix just narrows his eyes at that fake smile and laves another kiss to his stomach as he finally has to let loose his breath. “Felix, you really don’t—”

“I love it,” Felix says firmly. “Even if you’re skimping on your training, I still love it. Because it means you are safe and fed and have the luxury of not burning away everything you eat, so shut up and let me keep kissing you, yeah?” He rolls his eyes. “Or would I be happier discovering you completely dilapidated, wasting away with nothing but occasional gruel?”

Sylvain sighs. Alright. Point taken. It feels good though, to feel like he doesn’t have to hide bits and pieces of his body. Takes a bit of stress off he hadn’t realized was sticking around.

“You know…” Felix says, apparently satisfied as he untucks Sylvain’s shirt completely and rises back up to start mouthing at that spot of his neck he really seems to like, “When we got to the Officers Academy, you were so different to me. I could barely believe you were the same person.” 

Sylvain laughs and places his hands on Felix’s back, feeling the muscles working there. “You’re one to talk.”

“Shut up.” Felix kisses him on the mouth, quick and sweet. “And then when we found Dimitri and Byleth for the reunion...you’d changed again. For the better, that time. I could actually stand having a conversation with you for more than two seconds without my brain melting.” 

“You’re really killing it with this sweet ta—ah, teeth. Nipple. Teeth.”

Felix grimaces and pats the nipple in question like that will make it better. “Sorry. I’ll remember not to do that.” He meets Sylvain’s eyes. “Anyway, if you want sweet talk, find someone else. We were both awful teenagers.”

“We had redeeming qualities.” Sylvain sits up a bit on his elbows. “You were...dedicated and looked very nice in uniform.” He winks. “I was naturally dashing.” He gets flicked in the forehead for that. 

“That wink,” Felix declares, sitting back on his heels, “Drove me mad. Also this!” He laces his hands behind his head. “Where did that even come from? Going around like this all day!” It turns out that Felix has a really hard time winking. He can’t do it without screwing his face up. It makes Sylvain snort without Felix realizing the true cause. “No, I’m serious!” Felix insists, and Sylvain decides never to tell him about his dumb winking face. “I hated it so much because you never used to do it when we were kids! It was new things about you I didn’t know and I hated it!” 

Sylvain falls back off his elbows and tries to think. “Hmm. Not sure where the hand thing came from.” He arranges his hands behind his head on the pillow like so. “Must have picked it up from someone. I spent a lot of time following my dad around, y’know, after Duscur. Trying to curry favor while the country was in shock.” He winces. His father had been sort of terrible and he’d never shared all the details with anyone. Trying to use his kid to suck up to the Fraldarius name and the Blaiddyd line? Using the king’s death as a means to secure more power within the Alliance? Convincing the Kingdom that the Gautier territory required more military funding to keep Sreng at bay when Sreng posed no threat at all? Scum. A great warrior, once, and perhaps once a good lord, but by the time he was being a father? Just scum. And Sylvain had gone and sucked all that badness up because he thought it was the only way and then hated himself for years until the war and he could finally escape his father’s influence.

Felix kisses him again, this time long and slow and deep, like enjoying fine dark chocolate. “Wherever your head has gone, bring it back,” he says when he pulls away and rests their noses together. “I was saying you were better, after those five years. You’d...become a leader. More mature. And—”

“You were grumpier. But you looked good. Teal is your color.”

Felix doesn’t kiss him this time he interrupts. “I was not grumpier! I’m not grumpy! I’m...I’m…”

“Brooding?” Sylvain suggests with a smirk.

“No!” Felix covers his face with a hand as he sits up once more. “I’m trying to have an actual conversation here.” 

“Sorry.” Sylvain grabs his waist and rubs soft circles with his thumbs. “I’ll be quiet.” 

Felix hmmphs. “Doubtful. All I really want to say is that each time we meet, you’ve changed on me, and it’s hard to get used to that. But this time, seeing you again, it’s been the easiest.” 

Sylvain starts moving his hands to Felix’s spine and then slowly up his back. “Why’s that?”

Felix hums. “Well, you’re not fighting a war for one. That’s a nice change.” He smiles and reaches to push his fingers through Sylvain’s hair. It feels incredibly good. “I wouldn’t have begrudged you at all if you had married, but I can’t lie and say being able to kiss you and touch you and sleep beside you hasn’t been...pleasant.” 

“Only pleasant?”

“Shush.” Felix is going a little pink. Sylvain gets the impression he’s not sure where he’s going with this either. But Felix has always sort of lost his way when it comes to long speeches. He might know what the goal is, but how to get there is a maze of words that he never got good at bullshitting through. “I’m just...I’m just…!” He groans and shuts his eyes tight, fingers in Sylvain’s hair tightening ever so slightly. “There was a reason I wanted to run the moment I woke up, but I’m happy now that I couldn’t actually leave. Because I’ve missed you and I know it’s my fault but even if I can’t stay I’m just glad that you don’t hate me. Because I wondered that sometimes. If you hated me.”

“Felix…”

“But you’re here and you’re changing Fódlan into something better, something you’ll be proud of, and I knew...I knew this was why I couldn’t ask you to leave with me. Because you’re good at this Sylvain, and I wish…” He laughs and opens his eyes, blush receding from his face as he lets go of Sylvain’s hair and sits back again, only to have Sylvain pull him down with hands spread across his back. He doesn’t fight it, just falls into place with his head on Sylvain’s shoulder, breath hot against Sylvain’s bared skin as he laughs. “I wish I could be there when you tell Claude to stuff his trade agreement. I want to see his face when he realizes you caught on.”

“ _ You _ caught on.” Sylvain shakes his head. “I’m not as good at this stuff as you think, Fe. And how could you ever think I would hate you?” 

Felix hums again. “Same way you thought I left because of you, probably. But it doesn’t matter. I think...I think what I meant was you’ve changed so much since we were kids, and some was good and some was bad but if you think you need to be embarrassed because the change this time is that you’ve put on some weight, you’re being an idiot.” 

_ That  _ was his point? Sweet, Felix, but that’s an awfully long way to tell me it’s okay I’m getting fat. “Ah, so this entire time you were leading up to insulting me.” 

“I guess so,” Felix admits with a shrug.

It’s Sylvain’s turn to laugh and pull Felix closer. Shut his eyes. Breathe out and relax. “Well, I guess some things never change.” 

Felix might say something in retaliation or he might not. Sylvain sort of tunes out. It feels so nice to lie here with Felix warm in his arms. It makes him think of the different sort of life he might have had, if Felix had stayed. Maybe they could have had this. Maybe they could have slept in the same bed every night and kissed whenever they wanted. Maybe Sylvain would have actually put the effort in to get a proper bath built, maybe even one of those big fancy ones like at Garreg Mach or the royal palace. He’d probably need one, because no way Felix would be content living somewhere without guards, if only so he’d have people to prevent his own skills from getting rusty. And guards would appreciate a hot bath after a grueling training session with Felix. And the kitchens would have to produce more food too. Not just one woman still trying to look after the little lord she helped raise because without her he’d probably starve. No, real proper kitchens with actual dining rooms, where everyone could eat together, no separation of guards from cooks from lords of the domain. And Linus could get assistants. Two, no, three of them. And it would always be so lively, people running around and visitors coming and going and the sound of wooden swords thwacking and laughter of children, just like way back then. Where the children come from he doesn’t have a clue. Maybe when the little royal babies are born. Didn’t Mercedes and Annette take in some orphans at the church? He’s at least pretty sure Hilda has some nieces and nephews, and doesn’t Raphael have kids? Whatever, he’ll scrounge up some kids to shriek and shout outside while they play. The only time the place will be quiet will be the dead of night, when Sylvain can look out at the stars…

“The night sky is lonely up here,” he says, quite abruptly into the comfortable silence that has settled around them. He frowns and immediately tries to bluster his way out of it. “That...that was dumb. Ignore that. Line from a poem.” 

He shuts his eyes and tilts his face away when Felix lifts his head and he knows Felix is scrutinizing his face, from the top curls of hair on his head to the stubble he didn’t catch when he shaved.

“How can the sky be lonely?” Felix asks finally. “It’s full of the moon and stars and shit.” 

“I don’t know,” Sylvain says. “It just is.” 

The stare doesn’t let up. Sylvain can feel it prickling his skin. Felix probably seeing right through him in that unsettling way of his. 

“Sylvain—” Felix starts, and Sylvain sits up quickly, holding Felix to him so they don’t bonk heads. 

“Do you want to fuck me?” 

Felix swears into the fabric of Sylvain’s shirt. Oops. Sylvain lets go and Felix pushes away from Sylvain’s chest, brushing strands of dark hair from his mouth. “What?”

“Do you want to fuck me?” Sylvain asks again, patiently. “In a sex way.” 

Felix squints. “When would it be not in a sex way?”

Way to focus on entirely the wrong thing, Felix. Also, Sylvain could point out that Felix has been continuously fucking him over since he disappeared eight years ago, but that might be a little mean. “Fe, it’s sort of a yes or no question.”

“Yes!” Felix yelps, and then groans and slaps a hand over his face. “I mean...yes, but less desperate than that sounded.” 

Sylvain just laughs and leans forward so he can nudge that hand aside and kiss him. “You can be desperate. That’s just fine by me.”

“Whatever,” Felix grumbles. “You better have oil or something because one of my men spent a whole hour drunkenly complaining about the lack of lubrication on the road and I’m not physically or mentally able to go through that again.”

“A whole hour?” Impressive. 

Felix lowers his fingers so Sylvain can see his eyes roll. “It was a speech delivered to the whole camp when we got paid in whiskey. He left us to work solo two weeks later since people wouldn’t stop quoting it at him in the middle of battle.”

Sylvain snorts so hard it hurts his nose. “Who paid you in whiskey?” He’s never had whiskey, actually. He was raised on mead and wine and then graduated to ale and beer and then finally champagne when trapped at one of those royal events. He’s had gin. He has a bottle of gin in his bedroom, but it hurts going down and he doesn’t drink it much. He wonders if Felix has ever gotten drunk. Properly drunk, not like that time he went to dinner with Sylvain back in Garreg Mach or that tipsy night in Sylvain’s army tent when they snuck that crate of not-very-good-mead into camp to play cards with Hilda, Raphael, and Leonie. Even Felix couldn’t get drunk on mead.

But Felix waves the question of alcohol aside. “Some town in old Empire territory. Had more whiskey than gold. Do you have oil or something or do you want me to fuck you at all?” His eyes widen momentarily. “You do...you’re...do you?” 

“Yes.” Sylvain kisses that dumb look off his face. “I do. I have oil in my room. Wait here a minute.” 

Felix doesn’t wait. Felix hops right off the bed with him and follows him to the door. “You know I haven’t done this before. Do you have a...a...a  _ book _ or something that—”

Sylvain opens the drawer of his bureau and roots around in the dark space for the vial he knows is in there. Maybe he should open the curtains again at some point in here. But it’s not like he’s even using it as a bedroom anymore. Just clothes storage. “Felix, stop doubting my terrible reputation. Didn’t I tell you I’ve done it with guys before?”

“Yes, but...all the...all the way?”

You think I sleazed my way through Garreg Mach without getting fucked once or twice?”

Felix stops fussing. “Oh.” 

Sylvain’s hand closes around the vial. He throws a grin over Felix’s way. Not sure if he can see it in this dark or not. “Surprised?”

Felix waits a moment before answering. “In hindsight, no. I guess I thought at the time you might have told me that it wasn’t just girls. That nobody was safe from your advances.” It’s the same haughty tone he always used when he was talking to Sylvain back then, the one Sylvain now knows means something more, that a whole lot more words are waiting to be said. But Felix simply turns on his heel to return to the other room. Sylvain dances along behind him, trying to balance on the line between teasing and genuine inquiry.

“Jealous?”

Felix huffs. “You wish. Be grateful your sleazing around actually amounted to something useful today.” He hops back up onto the bed and hooks his hair behind his ear. The light from the windows makes his eyes look two shades lighter than they actually are, almost animalistic. Or ethereal. Sylvain chooses ethereal. Even as Felix scowls and puts a hand on his hip, trying to disguise nerves as annoyance and failing. “Aren’t you going to join me?” 

Sylvain snags his wrist and pulls him into a kiss and then climbs onto the bed after him. He loves the sharp gaze of the sun against his face. Once, sex was a pleasure and an exercise in cruelty all at once, tearing apart what he thought his partners actually wanted and exposing the ugliest parts of himself in the process. It was a thing for the night, when the shadows could hide how serrated his fake smile would become. But this here, this here with Felix, is light and sun and nothing needs to be hidden, not now. He needs no night to smother his smile. 

Nobody had been safe from his advances. That wasn’t true. 

“You don’t need to be jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.” Felix’s breath is a hot puff against his face. Sylvain knocks their foreheads together and shuts his eyes. He’s not sure he can manage to get the right words out if he’s distracted by Felix’s disgruntled face.

“Fe, I only wanted to sleep with people who didn’t matter to me. That’s why we never kissed, why we never became anything back then.” Sylvain releases Felix’s wrist to grab the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair as he slips his mouth around to Felix’s ear. “You were always too important to be a quick affair, a fuck in the dark. Goddess, you were the most important person in the world to me, the one who saw me as me, the one I let beat me with a wooden sword every day because I just wanted a minute more of your time, the one I would do anything for to fix things between us. Whether it was conscious or not, I could never try to chase you down the way I did those girls and boys I don’t even remember the faces of. You were too good for who I was then. So don’t be jealous.” He kisses the spot beneath Felix’s ear and feels him shiver so he does it again. And then adds in a lighter tone, “Besides, isn’t this your favorite version of me or something? You wouldn’t have wanted sex with that young, hot, muscled stud that I was.”

That earns a chuckle and Felix pulls away, rising up onto his knees. Sylvain opens his eyes and grins up at him, and then hums as Felix pulls his head into his stomach and pets his hair. “I guess if that was all I was after I could have asked Claude for a date,” Felix says lightly, and then laughs boisterously when Sylvain tackles him down into the sheets. “What? Jealous? Are you jealous? Von Vestra always had a dark appeal…”

Sylvain covers his mouth with his own before Felix can get one more word out and then plucks at Felix’s shirt before moving to nip at Felix’s neck, the bit he can reach with that wretched collar still in the way. “Clothes. Off.” 

Felix is efficient as always now given a mission, stripping off his shirt and trousers and then attacking Sylvain’s own, fumbling with buttons not already undone earlier and tossing everything aside. Here, too, their nakedness is nothing to be ashamed of in the light. “Okay, what do I do?” Felix asks in a frenzy, continually pushing his hair back even when there’s nothing in his face to push. 

“Well, you slow down, because it’s been a while and I would like to maybe enjoy this instead of trying to set a record.” Sylvain sets the vial in a safe place and opens his arms up to Felix before bearing them both into the pillows, bare bodies a tangle. Felix’s skin is so warm against his own and Goddess it’s lovely. “Let’s kiss a little more, shall we?”

Felix is willing to comply with that, and gasps and shudders just beautifully when Sylvain works a hand down between them and gets him off. He figures taking the edge off might help Felix relax a bit, but it isn’t two minutes before Felix is trying to bring up another idea. 

“What about...with my mouth?”

“Eh?” Sylvain finishes wiping his hand off on the sheets. “I mean...if you want to try…”

“I do.” Felix nods firmly and Sylvain wonders what sort of ridiculous nonsense is going through his head right now. They’d agreed to wait until the ice melted, which gives them a few days. They don’t have to blaze through every possible sex act in a single morning. 

In the end it doesn’t really matter though because Felix spends about three seconds contemplating Sylvain’s cock and then his face and then his cock and then his face again and declares, “I don’t like it.” 

“Okay?” Sylvain agrees, perplexed and a little insulted by this point. “I’ve never had anyone complain about it before but…”

Felix scoffs and crawls back up the bed so he can kiss Sylvain’s cheek. “Don’t worry, you chronic philanderer, I wasn’t talking about your equipment. I just don’t like that I’m all the way down there and you’re up here. I can’t kiss you or even reach your face. I’m going to use my hand. I like that more.”

Sylvain makes a mental note to maybe show Felix how nice being on the receiving end of a blowjob can be, but later, because they have time and if Felix wants to get his hand involved then he should damn straight get his hand involved. No objections here! Except that Felix is a damned sadist and keeps changing tactics the moment he gets a good rhythm going, tongue stuck out the side of his mouth like this is just one big experiment. Maybe that’s what it is. But eventually Felix glances over at Sylvain’s pained face, laughs, kisses him deep, and uses two flicks of his wrist and a few solid strokes to get Sylvain arching off the bed as he comes, biting down hard on his lip in case Linus is anywhere upstairs. 

“I think I figured out how you like it best,” Felix says smugly while Sylvain calms down from the aftershocks beside him. 

“Could’ve just...asked...me…for pointers,” Sylvain pants out and Felix smirks. Of course he was going for full marks.

“Not as much fun.”

See? Sadist. 

“Alright.” Sylvain rolls onto his stomach, pauses, wipes himself off with the sheets, and then reaches for the vial. Now, while he’s all loose from orgasm, is probably a good time. “I’m going to do the first part myself because you don’t do gentle.” 

“I do gentle!” 

“No, you really don’t.” Sylvain laughs at how affronted Felix looks. “You don’t, Felix, and that’s fine! It’s not like I’m cutting you out of the process altogether! Anyway, your fingers are all calloused and I already told you it’s been a while so, yeah, I really want to do this first part to myself, thanks.” 

Felix hmmphs but sits back with his legs folded in front of him. “Okay. Just stuff your fingers up your ass then, I don’t care.” 

“Saints, you’re touchy,” Sylvain murmurs, and leans forward to grab Felix’s chin and kiss him hard. “Come here. You think you were just going to sit back and watch? Move to the head of the bed...there, okay, keep kissing me…” 

Felix sits up against the pillows and devotes himself to the kissing part, almost to Sylvain’s distraction as he kneels above Felix and pops the top off the vial. The oil is cool between his fingers and he’s careful to replace the top before setting the vial aside. He sets his other hand on Felix’s shoulder to keep himself steady, and then breathes out slow as he reaches beneath himself, arching his back so his fingers can find that small and sensitive part of himself that seems...ah...smaller than he remembers? Holy shit, is he even going to be able to get a finger up there? Felix’s hands settle on his waist, almost as if he knows Sylvain needs the support. Maybe he does. He doesn’t stop kissing Sylvain for a second. Mouth. Nose. Corners of his eyes. Down and under his jaw. It’s a welcome distraction as Sylvain circles his finger around a bit and then sucks in breath and pushes a finger inside. It doesn’t go very far and also hurts more than he remembers. What had the guy who’d fucked him back at Garreg Mach done different? Sylvain focuses back on Felix’s kisses and waits to relax, moving his finger in tiny little motions. Eventually he gets a rhythm for it and the pain recedes. It seems natural to start using his hips so his poor wrist doesn’t have to do all the work. Felix’s hands on his hips startle a little when he shifts, but Felix stops kissing him long enough to look down beneath them, go completely red, and hide his hot face in Sylvain’s neck as he uses his own hands—backed by arms of nearly pure muscle—to move Sylvain’s hips back and forth, back and forth, until he can fit one finger very comfortably inside and is working on two. Now it’s beginning to feel pleasant and he can tell Felix is getting more excited too, if the fingers marking accidental bruises on his hips and the hungry way Felix kisses him until they’re breathless is any indication. Sylvain keeps going with his fingers for probably longer than necessary, just so it all goes smoothly, and then pulls his fingers out, wiping the excess oil off on the sheets. “Felix,” he whispers, and Felix’s eyes fly open. They’re nose to nose and he’s adorable. Sylvain kisses him on the cheek. “Time to switch. Let me lie down.” Felix nods, and he probably thinks he doesn’t look nervous, but honestly he looks like he might pass out. “Feeeeelix.” 

“What? I’m moving! See? I’m...well, I would move except you’re on top of me.” Felix scowls at him and Sylvain buries laughter in the crook of his shoulder. He rubs his clean hand against Felix’s cheek and then kisses up to his pouting mouth. 

“You need to relax,” Sylvain tells him. “This is supposed to feel nice.” He twists one leg in Felix’s and successfully gets them swapped around. He feels extremely decadent laid out on the pillows like this, ready to get fucked. Felix sighs as he straddles Sylvain, still scowling, pouting, and ruining his complexion with wrinkles. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, am I?”

So adorable. “No.” Sylvain reaches out to grab Felix to him. “No, no you’re not.” 

“I can be gentle.” 

“I know. I was joking with you before. I’m assuming you basically know what to do from here?” 

“Yeah, I...mmph...do...Syl...Sylvain, I can’t do it if you keep doing that!” 

Sylvain gasps in horror. “Oh no! What will you do when I just can’t...stop...kissing...you…?” He punctures each word with an exaggerated smooch to some part of Felix’s face, and finally he earns a laugh. More of a giggle, rather. Big fierce mercenary. Felix wipes his face and grins as he touches their foreheads together. 

“Okay, okay, I know what I’m doing. I think.” He moves down Sylvain’s body and sits between his folded legs. An eyebrow raises and then Felix’s rough finger traces along the hole Sylvain has made ready for him. Maybe getting fingered by Felix now he’s getting used to it again would be really, really hot. Felix must catch his shiver because his other eyebrow rises to join the first and he looks up, concerned, but then his expression turns knowing and oh so smug. “Maybe you don’t want all gentle.” 

“Felix…”

A roughened finger drags along the rim of his hole and Sylvain jerks, knees clamping together while he slaps a hand over his mouth to stop the whine. Fuck. 

“Can I have the oil?” Felix is grinning as he leans over Sylvain’s knees and Sylvain rolls his eyes as he locates the vial and hands it over. Sadist. A sadist who parts his legs, smile turning soft as their eyes meet, and then slides two fingers inside. 

Goddess. Sylvain’s leg twitches, out of his control now, but Felix has a firm grip on his thigh and keeps him steady, turning serious. His intense gaze switches between Sylvain’s face—flushed pink by now, he’s sure—and where his hand plays in and around his hole, experimenting with one finger, two fingers, dancing around the rim, driving deep inside, rubbing against tender inner walls and the bundle of nerves that is his entrance. It’s the same way that Felix had taken his time to experiment with what made Sylvain feel good during a hand job, but now it’s just...more. Maybe because Sylvain has had this particular place touched much less often, or because it’s simply been so long. Or maybe it’s because the idea of Felix being inside him makes a thrill run through him, the idea that he’ll be able to feel the ache between his legs a day or two after as lasting proof it happened. The idea that...that...that he’ll be giving something especially intimate to Felix, trusting him with his body like this. Whenever Sylvain made it to bed with a girl as a teenager, he was just as obsessed with making sure he wouldn’t have an heir as he was with finally proving to himself that she just wanted him because of the added benefits.

Actually, he can’t think of a time he’s had sex without that on his mind. They want me for my Crest. They want me for my blood. Or if he was with a guy, then he must want me for my money. I wouldn’t be here right now if my name wasn’t Gautier. 

Every single time: They wouldn’t want me if I wasn’t a Gautier. 

But now he lies in this bed with the light streaming on his face and Felix so determined to find out what feels good to him and not giving a damn what Sylvain’s name is. Fuck his bloodline. Fuck his Crest. Felix doesn’t care and Sylvain hadn’t realized what a weight on his chest that had been. He is just a person atop these sheets, fully exposed in the morning sun for exactly who he is to the one who has always seen him and kept by his side anyways. 

Felix glances back up to his face and freezes. “Did I hurt you?” 

“Hmm? No. Feels good,” Sylvain mumbles, and raises a hand to his face to find his cheeks wet with tears. “Oh.” 

Felix withdraws his fingers, earning a pathetic cry of protest, and crawls up between Sylvain’s legs to lay on top of him.

“Put your fingers back in,” Sylvain mumbles, but then Felix grabs his chin and kisses all his other words away. 

“I won’t keep going if I don’t know why you’re crying,” he says as he draws away and Sylvain groans. 

“It’s nothing. It’s stupid.” Felix doesn’t move. Stubborn. Sylvain turns his head to one side because he knows Felix’s expression will break him. “It’s just that with all the sleeping around I did—that we have already extensively established as a thing I did—none of it meant anything. I didn’t even like it most of the time. Too obsessed with...ulterior motives. This is the first time I’m doing this with someone I care about, and...and someone who...who…” Saints, why is this so hard to say? He shuts his eyes and focuses on how warm Felix is on top of him, skin against skin, the lovely regular press of his chest as he breathes. “Someone who doesn’t care about my Crest. Or who I want to prove just cares about my Crest. Someone who just cares...about me. About me.” He laughs a little, breathy and a little harsh. “Sad, isn’t it?” 

Felix hums, kisses his wet cheek, and runs a hand up Sylvain’s thigh, touch light and fleeting. “So we’re both new to this.” The hand catches beneath Sylvain’s knee and presses it just slightly in towards his chest. “I think a...a pillow?” 

Sylvain nods, wipes his face, and hands Felix one of the pillows he’s not using. He lifts his hips a little to make it easy for Felix to place the pillow beneath him, and then Felix is back in his face, eyes bright and a nervous smile playing on his lips. “It’s always been you,” he says, soothing hands down Sylvain’s sides. “From the day I met you until now, you’ve always been...so…” He shuts his eyes and shakes his head a little, still smiling. “So important to me, so precious. Even when you were so fucking annoying.”

‘Precious’ is such an odd thing to hear out of Felix’s mouth. Sylvain loops his arms around Felix’s neck to keep him trapped while Sylvain kisses him as much as he needs to in this moment. “Precious,” he mumbles against Felix’s mouth and he knows Felix goes pink without needing to see it. 

“I’m...um...I’m...I’m going to do it now!” Felix stammers, and Sylvain loosens his hold enough for Felix to sit back, push his hair back from his face for the umpteenth time, and then stay there, looking completely at a loss for what to do next. 

“You just stick your—” Sylvain begins helpfully but Felix shushes him with a scowl. 

“I know what to do. I just don’t know how to do it.” He takes one of Sylvain’s legs and folds it towards his chest as far as it can go. “Like this?”

There  _ is _ a certain freedom in having been with so many people that lets Sylvain operate pretty much without embarrassment as he pulls the second leg up and hooks his own hands behind his knees. He tests the condition of his own muscles and then nods up at Felix, who is hovering. “I think like this.”

Felix nods back. “Okay.” He braces one hand on Sylvain’s knee and ends up shoving his hips up even higher. Ready for the taking, Sylvain thinks vaguely and oh boy does that ever get him interested, the idea of being so vulnerable before Felix, completely in his control as Felix teases his hole a few times with his free hand before pouring some extra oil onto himself, popping the lid back on, and pressing the tip of his cock inside. 

“Faster,” Sylvain says immediately, and Felix gives him an exasperated look, made funnier by the fact he’s still so pink in the face. 

“I’m not even...I’m not even  _ in _ yet!” 

Goddess, everything is just so funny right now. Sylvain can’t stop himself from laughing. Felix’s hand tickles where it’s on his leg and his face is so cute and he’s practically wheezing when he says, “Oh, take me now, Fraldarius…”

“Shut up!” Felix practically wails, and pushes further in, out again, further in to the point he can try to physically stop Sylvain from laughing by shoving his oily hand over his mouth. 

“Ew, gross, gross, Felix, Goddess!” But that’s just funny too. “I’m okay. I’m okay, I’m okay!” Sylvain assures Felix before he can start to worry. “I’m just happy I guess, and it’s making me laugh, I don’t know, I wish you’d move because I was hard when you started but not when you just stay there like that.”

Felix sighs, wipes his oily hand on Sylvain’s cheek because he’s a jerk, and tries rocking his hips back and forth a few times, brow furrowed in concentration. He’s incredibly careful about the whole thing, which is what helps Sylvain get his breath back. Just how careful Felix is, just how much he puts into making sure he doesn’t hurt Sylvain. He doesn’t lurch in too quickly or blow his load after five seconds. Actually, in between slow thrusts, Sylvain can see him pinching the base of his cock, staying in control. Which is a very Felix thing to do, of course, staying in control, but maybe that was why that word had escaped. Precious. Felix treats him like something precious, and Sylvain loves him. 

He’s loved him for forever, and here, in this sunlit bed, he can admit it, in the privacy of his head without feeling the need to censor the word. I love you Felix. I love you, I love you, I love you. Ever since we met, I’ve been in the different stages of loving you. As a friend. As a brother. As a longing. As an unrequited desire. As touches and tears and hopes for a future. As a brief day of belief I could have you. As eight years of absence. And as a lover now, returned to me at last. 

Felix stops moving, but only because he’s bottomed out. He must feel bad about the oil because he leans forward and uses a blanket to wipe at Sylvain’s cheek. “What are you smiling about?” 

“You.”

Felix ducks his head. “Foolish,” he mutters, but he instantly leans into the touch when Sylvain repurposes one of his hands to stroke Felix’s cheek. It feels good, right now, just to be connected like this. His orgasm is a simmer a long way off, the arousal there but not desperate, something he can live with for a while so they can draw this out as long as possible. He’s half hard, and he knows that Felix could fix that with a few well aimed thrusts, but right now it seems more important to let Felix keep nuzzling into his hand like that damned kitten he loves so much. 

“It feels good,” Sylvain assures him. “It feels nice. Take your time.” 

It’s actually slightly frustrating how well Felix takes his time. Sylvain can barely remember his first time without physically recoiling at how fast he’d shot his load and almost risked a little Gautier Jr. running around. But Felix has always been about precise and controlled movements, hasn’t he? He places his hands atop Sylvain’s, helping to push his knees back, and then interlaces their fingers as he slowly, gently, rolls his hips back and forth and around. And Saints, does it feel nice. 

“You sure you—ah!—haven’t done this before?” Sylvain asks after a few soft and quiet moments, and Felix grins before picking up his pace a little. 

“Pretty sure.” He moves with a little more force now, and Sylvain groans as his legs get pushed up closer to his chest, ankles linking around Felix’s waist. Felix takes their interlocked hands and places them on the pillows at either side of Sylvain’s head instead, and then leans down as he pushes in and kisses him. Nips at his bottom lip and swallows down the protest when Sylvain opens his mouth. Thrusts with purpose and swallows down the moan as well. “Here?” he asks, breaking apart just a bit, still so close Sylvain can count his individual eyelashes. It’s a bit teasing in his voice, but it’s pure worry in his eyes. Needing to know he’s doing well, doing it right. Felix needs to know he’s doing it right. Sylvain nods. 

“There. There’s good.” 

Felix nods this time and Sylvain readies himself for another kiss but instead Felix noses his way down to Sylvain’s ear and then gets his mouth beneath his jaw. Sylvain groans and tilts his head back so Felix can leave his trail of kisses and soft bites, none hard enough to mark. Okay, okay, maybe Sylvain’s being a little lazy here, but Felix seems more than willing to make up for it. His teeth scrape against Sylvain’s pulse point as he starts to move faster, thrust harder, the jolting motion of it all travelling all the way up the bed, making the wooden posts creak. Sylvain shuts his eyes against the sun, feels it warm on his face as his mouth lets forth small sounds. “Ah, ah...ahhh, Felix…” He untangles one of his hands so he can grab Felix by the ribbon in his hair and force his head up so Sylvain can kiss him properly again. 

“Still good?” Felix asks, and then dots kisses to the corner of Sylvain’s eye, uses his own free hand to coil his fingers in Sylvain’s hair, combing through. 

“Still good, still good, there, there, right there, just—!”

For once, Felix actually listens to his directions. 

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah! Ah! Ah!” 

Felix seems only spurred by his cries, finally losing some of the steady rhythm in his hips and becoming more spastic in his movements, uncontrolled. He shifts his hand from Sylvain’s hair to work his cock instead, a little tight of grip but hell if that’s stopping the orgasm building in Sylvain now. His toes curl, his legs spasm, his hands fly to Felix’s back and tug him closer, nails biting into the skin. His teeth bite too, kisses sloppy and desperate as every bit of him seems to build and build and build...and then there’s the shuddering release of tension all at once that has his head thrown back against the pillows, a gasp forced out of him, every tremble increased ten-fold until he thinks he might just fall apart…

He’s too busy coming to realize he actually came. The warm release on his stomach is practically a surprise when his eyes focus again. Ah, yes. That. Damn, he feels like he’s made of fucking sunlight. He looks up from his stomach to where Felix is holding himself almost steady, buckling a bit at the elbows and hips jolting in miniscule motions. “Was that good?” Felix asks, breathless. Saints, he hasn’t come yet. 

“It was really good,” Sylvain reassures him, and presses his feet back into Felix’s hips. “Keep going. It’s okay.” 

Felix sucks at his lip where it’s bleeding just a little. Did Sylvain do that? Shit. “I’m going to come.” 

Sylvain loops his arms around Felix’s neck. “Good. Keep going. Come in me.” It’s not like he’ll get pregnant. No little Gautier brats running around. And it’ll be another first. Sylvain always pulled out before the threat of pregnancy, with a few close calls. And the guys he’d been with had pulled out without saying anything, like a courtesy. But he wants Felix in him. It’s a fucking weird thought, but he wants it anyway. Wants to feel Felix’s orgasm in the most intimate way he can, wants Felix to feel  _ him _ in every way that  _ he _ can. So Sylvain has something else to hold onto. So Felix has something else to remember. 

It takes a moment for Felix to get back up to speed, groaning as Sylvain bites at his neck and runs his nails along his back because of course Felix would get off on a little bit of pain. And it feels so damn good, the continued push and pull of Felix inside him, igniting little fires that make his legs shake but not enough to make him crave another orgasm. It’s simply...good. It’s simply perfect.

“—mm. I’m. I’m I’m I’m!” Felix mumbles, and then turns his head to where Sylvain’s hand is playing with his hair and gently bites down on two fingers. His eyes are squeezed shut, face completely pink, and Sylvain smiles gently—coasting on his own pleasure—as Felix sucks hard at his fingers and grabs at Sylvain’s shoulder to keep himself steady. 

“That’s perfect, Fe.” 

And that apparently does it. Felix cries out around Sylvain’s fingers and shudders all over. Sylvain can feel warmth between his legs, but he’s more concerned with the way Felix completely collapses on him like he’s dead or something, utterly driving the air out of Sylvain and squishing his come between them in a rather unpleasant way. Sylvain frees his fingers and pats Felix’s cheek. “Felix? Felix?” No response. “Are you dead?” 

“Wassut?” Felix rubs his face into Sylvain’s chest. “No...not dead.” He pauses. “I think.” He shifts a little higher so he can hide his face in Sylvain’s neck instead, seemingly oblivious to the mess between them. “Tired.” 

Sylvain laughs and wraps his arms around Felix tight. “You can sleep if you want to.” 

“No,” Felix states firmly, and is asleep two minutes later. Sylvain rolls his eyes with a quiet laugh and slowly turns them over so Felix flops onto the sheets. 

“This is supposed to be  _ your _ job,” he chastises as he tries to clean up the best he can. He uses a single sheet to wipe away the worst of the mess between his legs, and then the semen splattered on his and Felix’s stomachs. He grabs a washcloth from his own room to wipe the sweat from Felix’s face and neck before going back over his stomach and then returning to between his legs with greater care. He hums a little as he works. Maybe it was because it had been so long, but that had been good sex. The part where Felix sucked on his fingers was a bit of a surprise, but not an unpleasant one. Kind of hot. Felix figuring out what he likes is a good thing. Sylvain tries hard not to imagine Felix doing it with anyone else. 

He gathers up the dirty sheets and deposits them in his room. The room of shame. When Felix leaves and Sylvain actually occupies his own room again, there will be several midnight trips to wash the dirty clothes and sheets he’s hidden away in there. Sylvain makes sure to locate the vial of oil. He wants to use that again, for sure.

And then everything seems as clean as it is going to get. Sylvain stands beside the bed, listening to Felix breath, and looks out of a clear window, no longer frosted over or covered with snow. The sun is brilliant and warm through the panes of glass, and the ice is quickly melting in the noon heat. They won’t have more than a day or two of excuses before leaving for the capital. 

Sylvain returns to the bed and twitches the covers over them both of them before molding himself to Felix’s back. What if he simply refused to let go? Then Felix would use superior strength to wrench Sylvain away. And it was unfair to ask Felix to stay. He knows he could probably convince him, if he was pathetic enough, but Felix is right. It’s no life to stay hidden in the Gautier Mansion, a secret lover for the rest of his life. And Felix will not ask Sylvain to leave. He had never asked Sylvain to leave because he always knew Sylvain can’t. 

They would have these few weeks to try to tie up their could-have-beens with a pretty little bow, and then Felix would be gone again. The two of them were simply something meant to break. And maybe Sylvain will never pass on his Crest because he’s in love with a mercenary somewhere halfway across the continent, but passing on his Crest was never the plan anyway. Neither was heartbreak, but he’d rather what he’s had of Felix than never having him at all. It would hurt less, sure, never having him, but Sylvain can’t imagine a childhood half as bright without Felix at his side, a war he’d so desperately want to survive without Felix fighting at his back, a winter so worth it without Felix in his bed, his grumpy smile even in sleep making Sylvain’s heart beat so hard it feels like he might burst. Goddess, he is so in love with this difficult man, even if he will never tell him. He feels like Felix might know anyway. Or maybe not. He’s as emotionally dense as a brick most of the time. 

Sylvain props himself up on one elbow and brushes Felix’s hair away from his ear. He leans in close, so close his lips nearly brush Felix’s earlobe. “Hey,” he whispers, barely a sound even in the quiet of the mansion, “I love you.” And he kisses Felix’s temple before settling back into the bed, content to simply hold Felix tight and memorize each detail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I write sex that is not super emotional and they cry like six billion times before during and after? No I cannot. It's like a documented medical condition or something.  
> (I like to always switch up the bedroom shenanigans when writing sex in fic with same sex pairings because I know people have their personal preferences—I know I have my own preferences with some ships so please know I am not judging anyone at all over this—but yeah if you like it the other way, just know it's coming! I aim to please and fanfic is for fun so...they switch. The end.)  
> Next chapter very soon!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy flashbacks batman

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of incessant poking and tawny eyes, the first thing he sees when he wakes in the morning on his uncomfortable camp cot. Felix leans back a little and stops poking him once he’s sure Sylvain is awake. “I brought you breakfast.” 

Felix has been bringing him a lot of meals lately. There hadn’t been any real warning to the fact that he would start doing so. First it was just saving meals when Sylvain was out late on patrol or some other nonsense while on the march. And then it was saving him dinner if they were at Garreg Mach. And now they’re here, with Sylvain feeling slightly guilty over the fact Felix waits in line at camp to fetch two helpings of everything while Sylvain is still snoring away.

Maybe he’d ask him to stop, but Sylvain isn’t sure if this is Felix’s way of apologizing for acting angry all the time or Fraldarius language for something else altogether. Either way, Sylvain thinks he needs to let Felix act out what he wants to say. And he makes sure to never miss a meal. Even when Felix brings him bear meat.

But no bear today! He eagerly accepts the bowl of scrambled eggs with potatoes—he can tell Ashe made this since Duscur spicing is a darker color— and props himself up on one elbow to pop some fluffy egg in his mouth. “Thanks Felix,” he says, mouth full. 

A fork dings on his forehead. “I brought cutlery, you animal.” But Felix’s tone lacks any real spite and his expression is actually faintly content as he sits back on his heels beside the cot and uses the fork to steal one of Sylvain’s potato wedges. 

_ “I’m a little busy to wake you up with tea and toast every morning!”  _ Felix had said that loud and clear right after Myrddin. Yet here is, finding the time to bring Sylvain breakfast in bed because apparently he isn’t actually quite that busy. That’s not a friendship thing, is it? Goddess knows Sylvain loves—oh, just pick a person—Mercedes, for example, but he’s not waking her up with personal butler service. 

And Felix doesn’t bring anyone else breakfast in bed. If Sylvain had told himself he could take those lovely feelings of his and pretend being friends with Felix was enough, the delivery of eggs and potatoes—this awkward way of Felix showing he cares—throws that notion out the window so hard it could probably kill someone on impact. Sylvain wants friendship. But he also craves something else. Something he knows he can’t have. Yet. 

As a result, his imagination is putting in a lot of work lately. Not much to do, on the treks to and from the monastery. His imaginings are innocent sorts of things though, because that’s how he would want to court Felix,  _ woo _ him properly in a way even Felix couldn’t misinterpret. Flowers. Long walks at sunset. Some of that disgustingly bitter coffee he can buy down at the market to give as a gift. And then...the kiss. A perfect kiss. Whether it’s on the rooftop at sunrise, or hiding under the gazebo during a sudden flood of rain, or just the simplest motion of Sylvain taking Felix’s chin and kissing him against the warm outer walls of the cathedral in the late afternoon, it will be a perfect kiss. And then...they win the war and become lovers or something? No, Sylvain will fit some more wooing in between the war and the future. Hire some musicians, try his voice out on a little serenading in the halls of Garreg Mach? It will make Felix want to strangle him but also let the world know that Sylvain Jose Gautier has finally dropped his anchor. 

But these thoughts really don’t belong in a war. He’s watching Felix almost more than he’s watching the enemy these days. Or at least searching for him so Sylvain can watch him then, because Felix has the habit of just disappearing on the battlefield for long periods of time to go kill people. But then he becomes visible again and Sylvain watches. Imagines. Gets dangerously distracted. All because of these thoughts. But he doesn’t make any real effort to stop them. 

And some people are definitely catching on that  _ something _ has gone down between the two of them. Or at least that ‘someone’s heart has been stolen’, according to a beaming Ferdinand, who’d overheard Sylvain whistling love songs in the dorm hallway. Of course Ingrid had caught on within two days of Sylvain realizing he maybe sort of really likes Felix in that sort of way. 

“Just…” She’d sighed and taken the bridle off her pegasus. “Don’t be...stupid.” She’d sighed louder and pressed her forehead to her mount’s, staring into its darling eyes. “Or just...make sure this is really what you want. Because you know Felix doesn’t do things halfway.” 

“I’m offended by the fact you think I’d ever do anything stupid in my life, ever,” Sylvain told her, and yelped when she whipped the bridle in his direction. “Yes, Ingrid! I’ve met him too! It’s not like I’m...I’m...I’m proposing marriage or anything! I just...might prod a little, that’s all. See if I have a chance.”

But prodding is hard when it’s Felix, because he’s pretty sure Felix has three groups of people and that’s ‘people I’d fight’ for people he doesn’t like and ‘people I’d  _ spar _ ’ for people he does like and then ‘unaware of their existence’ for people he either really doesn’t know or just doesn’t care about. Sylvain is aiming to create a little fourth category here for himself that he can hopefully hop into from the ‘would spar’ space in Felix’s heart that he’s sure he currently occupies. So far, the breakfast in bed thing seems to hint at that fourth category maybe starting to form, but Sylvain won’t rush. There’s no way Felix has even remotely thought about him in any sort of romantic way, not Felix, so Sylvain has to go slow with his prodding. Lay the groundwork. Build up the foundations. All that setup he’d always blazed by in every other relationship he’s had in his life, but this one is important. 

Because it’s Felix. That’s what he can tell Ingrid, next time she asks. It’s Felix. Somewhere along the way, I’ve discovered I’ll do pretty much anything to keep that little Fraldarius kid safe and reasonably content since he’s a bit too moody these days to promise happiness. But whether it’s from Imperial soldiers or my own stupidity, I won’t let him be hurt. Not anymore.

Felix steals another potato. “Eat up. We’re marching in an hour.”

An hour? An hour is plenty of time. 

“Want to ride with me back?” Sylvain asks, because it seems like sort of a ‘wooing’ thing to do. 

“Fuck no,” Felix answers vehemently, and that’s the end of that woo. Felix will travel along on the fringes of the crowd, as always, never in sight but always there to make a sardonic comment at the right time in a true miracle of human teleportation. Maybe he gets Lysithea to use Warp on him? But the aversion to horses is nothing new and Sylvain knew he’d be shot down. The thought of Felix’s arms wrapped around him from behind had been nice, that’s all. 

_ “We’re cleaning pots and pans, hooray! Get all the dishes done, I say! _

_ Gather all the mugs and plates and wash them all… _ ooh! _ ” _

A frustrated stomp of a foot right outside his tent. “ _ Wash them all...so...so so so so so so _ …”

Felix grins a little at the sound of Annette trying to finish her tune. Sylvain grins too, for double reasons. First, because he likes how soft Felix is around Annette, and also because Annette’s songs are honestly a treat on long marches. He hopes they can sing this new ‘Dishwashing Song’ on the way back to Garreg Mach. 

Annette taps her feet outside the tent a few times to announce her arrival and then pokes her head inside. The sun over the last few days has emphasized her freckles. “Good morning!” She holds out the tub of dirty dishes in her arms. “Do you have anything for me?”

“Give me two seconds,” Sylvain tells her, and starts eating as fast as he can. 

“So we’re not late,” Felix tells Annette, still smiling. “Wash them all so we’re not late. That rhymes. And makes sense.”

Annette pouts a little. “I swear, Felix, if you bring up the library song, I will...I will...wash them all so we’re not late. It does work!” She beams at him.

Felix nabs Sylvain’s now empty bowl and the fork and goes to put them in Annette’s tub as he stands. “Here. Let me carry that for you.” 

She gives it up with a sigh of relief, dishes clinking as the tub is exchanged from one set of arms to another. “Thank you Felix. That’s almost everyone. Mercie and Dedue just need this tub and then we’re done.” 

Felix nods and looks back to Sylvain before he leaves with Annette. “I…” And then he seems almost embarrassed. “I’ll find you? Tonight?” It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. The past few nights have been spent in each other’s company, sometimes with Ingrid or Ashe or even the Professor, playing cards or sharing stories, because apparently Jeralt hadn’t ever told his kid basic Fódlan legends either? Or sometimes it’s just Felix and Sylvain and they are content in silence, napping or polishing armor or playing board games with only the tap tap tap of wood on wood giving them away as awake at all. 

It’s been...easy.

It’s comfortable. Like their conversation at the Bridge of Myrddin actually made a difference. 

Even if his romantic endeavours with Felix go up in smoke, Sylvain will cling to these precious evenings until his fingers fall off. 

“See you tonight,” Sylvain agrees, and listens to Felix and Annette move off, Annette trying out the new lyrics of her song. 

“ _ Gather all the mugs and plates and wash them all so we’re not late _ !”

By the time Sylvain hears the song in its completion, it’s noon and everyone marching in his unit is singing the tune when he drops back from the front to ride with them a while, because as embarrassed she might be about people hearing her sing, Annette just doesn’t know how to lower the volume. Now there’s a verse about bubbles and drying rags too. This song is turning into an epic. 

Sylvain entertains the brief idea of marching on Enbarr with everyone belting the ‘Dishwashing Song’ at the top of their lungs. The amount of disorientation it would cause the enemy might actually be worth it. 

True to his word, Felix finds him after camp has been made. They’re only a day from Garreg Mach now, so tomorrow Sylvain will return to arriving at the dining hall to find that Felix—bless his meat-eating heart—has already placed two plates upon the table with nary a peach cobbler in sight but Sylvain will eat it like it’s food of the gods because that’s his way of trying to speak Fraldarius language back. However, everyone eats the same on the road and tonight is bread with tomato soup. Felix looks a little exhausted from whatever the hell he gets up to when no one is watching, like slaying demonic beasts all by himself or some other stupidly Felix thing Sylvain can easily see happening, so it’s Sylvain who fetches food this time because delivering meals is just as wonderful a feeling as receiving them, especially when Felix rolls over on the floor, slurps some soup from the bowl, and hums happily. Fraldarius language can be really effective sometimes.

“I brought cutlery, you animal,” Sylvain teases softly, putting a spoon down next to Felix’s bread. Later, he’ll go get some of that chamomile tea Mercedes always brews in the big pot at night and maybe Ingrid will join them for a game of cards. 

The red soup stains Felix’s lips for a moment before he licks them clean and Sylvain feels the warmth kindling in his stomach flare up, just a little. If this was still peacetime, if they were still schoolboys sharing a bed, Sylvain might have kissed him then, licked that soup away himself. But he knows better than that now.  _ He’s _ better than that now. Back then, he couldn’t promise to make Felix happy. To keep him safe. So now he has to be slow. Careful. Make sure he actually has a chance. 

But the second that chance appears...

Ingrid had been right. Felix doesn’t do things halfway. Luckily, Sylvain doesn’t plan on tackling any of this with anything less than his all. It’s going to be the grandest courting in the history of the world. But, Goddess help him, one day he is going to kiss Felix Hugo Fraldarius. 

Aside from that, he doesn’t know much about the future, after all the wooing has been completed. Do they become lovers? Or something more official than that? Husbands? Saints, he doesn’t even know how that would work.

Either way, it’s going to be a happily ever after. Sylvain wouldn’t offer Felix anything less.

And then they’ll be together for the rest of their lives.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Felix changes his mind on the horse thing about three seconds after getting on. “Actually, this is a bad idea. I’ll walk. I’ll walk.” It’s only Sylvain’s firm hands keeping him in the saddle that prevent him from sliding away to safety. “Sylvain, let me down. Let me the fuck down, I am not riding this monster all the way to Fhirdiad…”

“We can take walking breaks,” Sylvain tells him firmly. He’s dressed normally for now, leather trousers and a thick coat, but his lordly best is stored in the saddlebags of Felix’s horse. “I sent a carrier pigeon to Ingrid telling her we’d be coming, so if we’re not there in three days she’s going to worry.” 

Felix snorts. Kathleen the carrier pigeon wouldn’t have made it to the capital. But fine. If it will keep Ingrid from worrying. He’s done enough of that the past eight years. Okay, maybe more like twenty-five. He can’t remember a time he wasn’t making Ingrid scold him for being reckless. He’s glad Sylvain broke the news about Felix accompanying him over a letter. It’ll give Ingrid time to stop wanting to throttle him on the spot.

Sylvain swings himself up onto his mount effortlessly. Of course it’s effortless. Stupid cavalrymen with their stupid (attractive) muscular legs. They’re all packed and ready to go, thanks to Milo and Ms. Ada. Ms. Ada had even slipped ginger cookies into Felix’s pocket with a wink. He wishes he could tell her how much he adores her but he’s always been awful at that sort of thing. 

Sylvain does shift uncomfortably in his seat and Felix glances away, a little mortified. They had...they had done it a lot, the last two days. Sylvain had let Felix fuck him  _ a lot _ . And Felix knows there was mutual enjoyment, even that time Felix nearly killed Sylvain who’d been giving him a blowjob—he can admit they feel good, but after nearly choking Sylvain to death, had declined any subsequent offers—so he shouldn’t feel too bad, especially with the way Sylvain was always offering, again and again, for Felix to fuck him, but riding is probably going to hurt like hell. They might end up doing a lot of walking just to save Sylvain’s backside. 

The documents for the trade agreement, among other things, are stored in Sylvain’s satchel. Wrapped in twine, so there is no chance of pieces of paper flying away. Linus’ idea. 

The horse beneath Felix takes a step to the left and he grabs hold of her mane tight. Milo had promised this was one of the most sweet-tempered mares he’d ever worked with, that she’d follow Sylvain wherever he led, but Felix would see about that. 

“You all set?” Sylvain calls to him, and Felix nods stiffly. He hates horses. He hates them so much. Sylvain smiles, a little sadly Felix thinks, and then clicks his tongue to start his horse off along the road, which is now sufficiently melted. Sylvain raises a hand to wave at the mansion as they disappear off down the road. Felix doesn’t trust himself to let go of the mane. He contents himself with looking back at the mansion. He’s sure he’ll see it again, from a distance. Brigands aren’t going to stop encroaching on Fraldarius and Gautier territories any time soon. But next time, he won’t leave a sign that he was there. That’s better for everyone. 

Maybe he won’t join up with Leonie, even if he learns her location in Fhirdiad. The plan had been to ask around for information, visit Ashe and Ingrid, and then leave before anyone else, especially  _ His Majesty _ , could discover he was there. It’s a pity Annette and Mercedes won’t be around and he would have liked to see Dedue if only to apologize for being such a prick before, but that’s tempting fate. Ashe and Ingrid, if only because he feels so guilty, and then gone. But he could go solo again. Keep a better eye on this part of the old Kingdom. Protect Sylvain better than he has been, knowing the idiot doesn’t even have a personal guard…

“We have a stop to make here.” Sylvain’s voice jolts Felix out of his thoughts. Sylvain is pointing to a small town up ahead. “I ordered something.” 

Felix sighs heavily but there’s nothing he can do. His horse is tethered to Sylvain’s. They ride into town, Sylvain exchanging greetings with the villagers he meets, and then he hops down off his mount and loops the reins carelessly around a fencepost. He comes around to help Felix down but Felix is very good at falling off horses by himself, thanks. He stumbles and curses and manages to get himself upright under Sylvain’s amused gaze, damn him. “So what’s this order of yours?” 

Sylvain jerks his head towards the store they’ve stopped in front of. “Go see. Tell them you’re my guest. And then go see the blacksmith. Across the road, I know you’ll find it.” As if Felix would miss the smell of metal and the clang of the hammer. “I’m going to talk to the village leader about supplies from Bergliez. Meet back here?” 

Again, like he has a choice. But it’s sweet how Sylvain asks. Felix nods jerkily and heads for the store. Tailor? What does Sylvain need at a tailor’s? He has plenty of those floofy shirts, right? The clerk behind the counter looks up with interest when Felix enters. “Sir?” 

Felix sighs and rubs at his forehead. “I’m here for Syl—I’m here for Margrave Gautier?” 

The clerk lights up. “Ah, yes! Yes yes yes! Right this way, sir!” Felix follows, bemused, as the tailor flits to the back of the store and then pulls a curtain back to reveal a dressing room, complete with a table of pins and thread for last-minute adjustments. 

“Wait, what is…” His eyes catch on the dark blue fabric folded on the table. He feels his eyes widen, traitors. “Is that for me?” He  _ had _ pestered Sylvain for new clothes, hadn’t he? And then completely forgotten about it. But this looks...expensive. Not scraps of leather and fur like Linus had burned.

“The Margrave sent me all your measurements, sir,” The clerk—no, he must be the tailor—chirps. “Why don’t you try everything on and I’ll see if any adjustments are needed.” The curtain closes. 

Considering the state of the village, the tailor is probably kept in business solely on Sylvain’s coin. Felix sheds his borrowed coat and shirt and dumps them in the corner. This outfit on the table comes with gloves and everything.  _ Quite  _ expensive, in other words. A white quilted shirt that fits perfectly, no matter how Felix bends and stretches and lunges forward with sword drills. The fabric stretches up his neck before folding gracefully at the top and flares a little in the sleeves before fitting snug around the wrist. A deep blue vest, padded for warmth and fringed with black wolf fur. The color blue matches the ribbon Sylvain had tied in his hair, Felix realizes, turning a bit to look in the mirror. Yes, almost an exact match. A leather pouch goes about his waist, and then black trousers. Woolen socks that reach up to the knee, and then leather boots dyed the same dark blue, again fringed with fur, right up to the knee as well. There are several little leather pouches sewn onto the boots, and a couple of belts with small compartments as well that don’t seem to have a specific place, although the leather pauldron is easy enough to secure around his shoulder. He wraps the belts where he pleases, makes sure to put his ginger cookies in one of the pouches, and then looks in the mirror, pretty damn pleased. It lacks the silver embellishments and ridiculous detailing that would make him stand out too much as a mercenary, and it isn’t in the customary Fraldarius color, another bonus. The cloak is blue as well, with a fur-lined hood and woolen interior, and it rather ingeniously latches onto hooks sewn into his vest to keep it in place rather than impeding his arm movement by attaching at the neck. He can already guess what awaits him at the blacksmith. Part of him wants to strangle Sylvain for spending so much on him but, well, it’s a really nice set of clothes. Measurements are just right too. Or maybe the sleeve length is a bit too long, but the way they fit around the wrist prevents the extra little length of fabric from being a problem.

He pulls the curtain aside and goes to find the tailor at the counter. “I think I’m good. It all fits. Thank you.” Of course it’s not that easy. The tailor has to circle him several times, inspecting, stitching a few seams over for extra durability, before finally agreeing that he’s set to go. The Margrave Gautier had already paid. Of course he had. Felix flips the hood of the cloak up against the cold and tugs the gloves on before wandering down the street to the telltale smell and sound of the blacksmith. It feels nice to be in clothes that fit him again, and such well-made clothes at that. His borrowed clothes are a bundle tucked under a belt as he approaches the open front of the blacksmith’s shop and raps on the wooden side beam. The woman nods when he knocks but then returns to her work. Horseshoes, it looks like, mostly. Well, why would these villagers need swords? It’s all horseshoes and other farming equipment. Hopefully the swords don’t bend in the middle, at least.

The woman stops hammering after a moment and Felix feels her eyes on him, appraising. “You’re the Margrave’s man?” she asks at last. 

“Um…” In what sense? “Yes?” 

“Wait here.” 

Alright, he was being a snob. Sure they aren’t Zoltan blades, but there aren’t any imperfections in the steel he can see, and the hilts are a lovely supple leather easy to grip and not likely to cause blisters, even as he adjusts to them. A little tassle of dark blue matches the twin blades to his outfit. “This too,” the blacksmith says, and hands him a little dagger in a leather pouch designed to clip on anywhere. Felix snaps it into place on the belt he’d wrapped around his thigh and then accepts the sword belt—scabbards lashed—with thanks. Sylvain had really thought this through. Even the sword belt matches. He slides the swords home into their scabbards and nearly shivers with how smooth the motion is.

It feels so  _ right _ to have swords at his side again. Felix can’t stop grinning. He wishes he had some coin to tip the blacksmith, but all he can do is thank her again and praise her craftsmanship. She waves him away in the end, a little exasperated by the compliments. Felix walks back down the street to the horses, relishing in the feel of having his weapons back, how it changes his gait, just a little, to have that weight at his side. Sylvain is already waiting by the horses, leaning against Felix’s mare, grinning with his arms crossed casually. “Do you like your presents?”

Felix glances left, glances right, glances behind. He tugs his hood the farthest it will go and grabs Sylvain by his coat, kissing him hard and fierce before pulling away and reaching for the saddle. “You’re going to have to help me again.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sylvain teases, and steals a kiss to Felix’s cheek when he leans close to steady his waist while he hoists himself up on the horse. It’s Sylvain who makes sure the cloak lays out behind him instead of getting bundled up in the saddle. “You look nice. Really nice.” Is he blushing? After all they’ve done the past couple days, Sylvain still has the nerve to blush? 

“Well, you had to know my body very well to get the measurements so exact,” Felix replies flippantly, and can’t believe it when Sylvain blushes even more. They’d used a tape measure, if he recalls. Hardly sex related. He grins while Sylvain is mounting his horse and can’t see just how delighted he is. Maybe this journey won’t be as miserable as he’d anticipated. 

But no more sex. They’d agreed to that last night. Not even if it’s just hands. They’d live dangerously and threaten Sylvain’s good name with kissing, at least up until a day of Fhirdiad, but any rumors of Sylvain fucking his personal guard couldn’t be allowed. So they’d tried to make the last time they fucked last night as memorable as possible. And then managed to rush a few more rounds in this morning. Felix shifts a little in his seat, fully aware that the high rise of his shirt up his neck is hiding some dark purple marks that Felix loves wearing and Sylvain loves making. Yeah, he’ll remember that for a while. Thank the Goddess the tailor hadn’t actually wanted to make any adjustments. 

Sylvain clicks the horses into motion and they ride through the village at a steady pace that picks up just a little as they leave the homes and shops behind. Felix’s horse dutifully follows Sylvain’s, but they’re not close enough to talk. He can’t ask about the Bergliez grain shipment or whether Sylvain thinks that cloud looks like a rabbit or not. He just holds on tight and enjoys the view, both of Gautier territory and the Gautier lord in front of him. 

They stop for lunch early in the middle of the road. “Not like there’s anyone coming,” Sylvain says with a shrug and then shoots Felix the evil eye. “And my ass hurts like it’s on fire.” 

Felix rolls his eyes and waits until they’re seated on rocks eating sandwiches before muttering, under his breath, “ _ Harder Felix! Fuck me harder Felix _ !” 

Sylvain goes red and chokes on his sandwich. He keeps any complaints about his rear end to himself for the rest of the trip. 

Being on a horse is fucking boring. Walking is pretty boring too, but at least his legs are moving. Being on a horse is just counting trees. Felix stops that after two thousand. It’s a heavily wooded area. 

Sylvain takes another break a few hours later and rests up while Felix practices basic forms with his new swords. He still can’t believe how lovely they are. He’s been using shitty iron swords since the ones from his father broke years ago from constant usage. To swing steel again is like making the air sing, and he’s already able to get the dagger out of its sheath and ready to stab in two seconds. He’ll whittle that time down quickly. 

“Do you think you can manage a trot?” Sylvain asks when they get back on their horses. “The inn I want to stay at is still a while away and I don’t want to travel when it gets too dark.” 

Felix grunts and hunkers lower over his horse, gripping her mane as tight as he can hopefully without hurting her. It’s not her fault she’s a horse. Sylvain takes his reaction as a yes and clicks his horse into action once more, spurring it on with gentle nudges to pick up the pace. Ugh. Is there such a thing as being horsesick? If people can get sick from being on a boat, Felix is certainly allowed to get sick on a horse. He lies down as far as he is able and tries to think of other things. His swords. His dagger. His nice new clothes to replace the ones that got burned. He’d stuffed the clothes he had been wearing into a saddlebag after absentmindedly holding them under his belt for an hour. He doesn’t think Sylvain will mind if he takes them. He’ll need something to wear on days he’s doing laundry, and he’s more determined to keep these clothes neater and cleaner than the last set of furs and leather. So he’ll have to do laundry more often and try not to get cut. Blood is hell to get out of fabric. 

He’d say this is the most bored he’s been in years, but just over two weeks ago he was confined to a bed while Sylvain did paperwork. That might have been even more boring than this. At least he isn’t in pain and sweating up a feverish storm. Felix entertains himself thinking about things worse than being on the back of a horse and comes up with a handful. Being stuck in that bed. Getting stabbed. When Glenn died. Leaving Sylvain and sneaking out of Enbarr. When he’s going to abandon Sylvain again and leave Fhirdiad behind. No. No, don’t think about that. Don’t think about it now. Don’t think about it while you’re doing it. And try not to think about it afterwards. 

If you can just not think about Sylvain for the rest of your life, that would be best. Impossible, but for the best. 

They reach the inn, a tiny establishment really, perhaps a half hour after the sun has set and the innkeeper calls Sylvain by name. He must pass by here often. Dinner is wonderful, even if it feels a little quiet without Milo and Ms. Ada and even Linus. It isn’t until he’s seated that Felix realizes how much the stress of clinging to the horse has sapped at his energy. He’s moving as sluggishly as Sylvain when they climb the stairs to their room. Felix immediately strips off his nice clothes because like hell he’s getting any more sweat on them than he already has. He focuses on washing up in the basin of warm water with a couple of washcloths that were left in the room, but he’s happy to be distracted when Sylvain’s fingers tap beneath his chin and tilt his face back for a kiss. Delighted to be distracted, actually, when they’ve had so little contact all day.

It feels right to be seated in Sylvain’s lap with Sylvain’s face trapped between Felix’s hands, trapped so Felix can kiss him again and again and again. The bed creaks a little each time they move, so Sylvain mostly sits still and lets Felix kiss him. Time could stop right now, Felix decides, and he would be alright with it. He could spend eternity kissing Sylvain. Hell, he doesn’t know how he’s going to go on without this. But he also knows he can’t stay. Not as a merc. And not as a secret. 

He takes what he can steal now. 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of mud, and the way it had splashed when Sylvain fell from his horse. There’s a throwing axe embedded in his side that the Imperial soldier had meant for Felix, until a certain fool placed himself right in the way. 

He hadn’t even been looking at the soldier as he fell. He’d smiled at Felix instead. 

Felix doesn’t bother with cries of rage or anything like that. He skids through the mud as Sylvain’s horse canters away and sticks his sword in the soldier’s throat. He doesn’t have time to be nice. He leaves the man choking to death on his own blood and falls to his knees, gathering Sylvain into his lap. Fuck, what does he do when there’s an axe sticking out of him? Take it out? Leave it in? He hadn’t paid attention in Manuela’s classes! 

His hands are red and warm and the rest of him is numb.

The rain beats down a steady rhythm and Sylvain’s cheek is so cold when Felix brushes his fingers against it. He glances around but his hair is plastered to his face and obscuring his vision. “Help!” he tries calling, fully aware he’s also announcing their location to any remaining enemies. “Help!” 

No one comes. Felix bites his lip until he tastes blood and hates himself for not being the one bleeding in the mud. Stupid Sylvain, always jumping in like this. Doesn’t he understand that losing him would be just like dying to Felix? 

He doesn’t have any candies in his pocket to give this time. 

“Help!” he calls, a little louder now. “Mercedes, Flayn, someone, help!” Goddess, Sylvain could be dead but Felix is shaking so hard he can’t even tell if Sylvain is breathing or not. He curls over Sylvain and tries to wipe the mud and rain from his face but his fingers are red with Sylvain’s blood and the blood of all the people Felix has killed today, so he just leaves trails of fading pink down Sylvain’s cheek and across his brow. “Help,” he tries one more time, but it’s a pathetic little cry. 

Byleth answers it regardless. Felix startles at her touch, but straightens and holds Sylvain steady as she kneels on his other side, nods at Felix, and tugs the axe out. The white light of healing magic immediately blooms in her hand and Felix can see the bloody tissue in Sylvain’s side knitting back together. It’s nowhere near Mercedes’ skill or speed, but once Byleth is done, Sylvain stirs in Felix’s lap and opens his eyes with an incomprehensible mumble. 

“Go back to sleep, you idiot,” Felix tells him, trying very, very hard not to show how deliriously happy he is, and Sylvain closes his eyes once more. 

Felix looks up at Byleth, who offers him a slight smile and a nod. 

“Is the battle over?” Felix asks. 

His professor rises and nods again. 

Felix sighs and scowls. First he almost gets Sylvain killed, and then he sits here crying for half the fight. “I’m sorry. I’ll be more useful next time.” 

Byleth blinks. “This was important too,” she says, and walks off into the rain. 

***

Back at the monastery, Sylvain is patched up with bandages and Felix doesn’t know what to say when he visits. Mostly lets his mouth run insults since that’s what he’s best at and it will hopefully hide just how fucking relieved he is to see Sylvain smile. 

Sylvain just teases him the whole time anyway, so it’s alright. He’s safe. He hasn’t given himself away.

Of  _ course _ he remembers their promise. Did Sylvain think he could ever forget? It was the moment he tied himself to Sylvain with a rope that could never break, the moment that probably led to the mess he’s in now. 

He’s in way too deep and doesn’t know which way is the surface.

That night, Felix finds an open window facing the courtyard he doesn’t think anyone will mind him using. He sits curled sideways inside it, staring at the moon. He’d automatically gotten dinner for Sylvain—it had started as proof that Felix isn’t angry with him after Myrddin, but then transformed into something else when he realized how damn  _ happy _ Sylvain could be made by a simple breakfast—but Mercedes had beaten him to it with a mix of soft foods that night, so Felix had performed a hasty retreat he hopes Sylvain didn’t notice from beyond the door and ditched the food in the stables where the stray cats like to gather. Lots of meat, for strength. For survival.

Safe in the windowsill, he closes his eyes and can still feel Sylvain’s warm blood on his hands. 

Why does his happiness depend so much on one person? It’s a bad habit, one he has to fix. When Glenn died it had nearly killed him too. If Sylvain dies, which he nearly does with alarming frequency, Felix doesn’t know what will be left of him. 

See me, Sylvain. See me when you’re about to take a hit for me and realize I would relish the pain of an axe in my side if it keeps that pain from you. 

So why must you do the same for me? It hurts me the same either way and at least it will keep you safe.

Even as he’d fallen from his horse, that smile had been real. It’s always real now, every inch the boy Felix had once known. And Felix had been an idiot to think he had built a strong enough barrier around his heart to last through this war. Forget losing a classmate. Sylvain’s smile alone is enough to create cracks everywhere, always threatening to shatter that shield.

But though he might steal those smiles now and again, he knows that ultimately they will belong to someone else. A pretty girl who laughs like a bell and loves Sylvain like he should be loved. Because Felix doesn’t know how to accept those smiles or the casual touches Sylvain offers him these days, even if Sylvain was offering them in the way Felix yearns for. He wasn’t forged in gentleness. He is a weapon, and weapons only hurt, and Felix doesn’t know how to change that. He’s all sharp edges and anyone who touches him will only end up bleeding. He doesn’t know how to love people the way they deserve.

Maybe Sylvain could one day look at Felix and see him the same way Felix looks at Sylvain, if only Felix could be a little less...him.

He curls up tighter and touches his forehead to his knees. He doesn’t know _ how  _ to be anyone but himself and he’s too proud to change himself for some stupid infatuation. That’s all this is. Infatuation. 

Hah. Now who’s the liar, Fraldarius? 

You love him. 

But you shouldn’t.

He hears Byleth approach before she rounds the corner. Honing his ears had been something he’d worked on carefully these past few years. To be able to judge the number of enemies, how many cavalry members, how many foot soldiers, even if they travel from the Empire or    
Sreng. All different types of footsteps. And Byleth’s are the softest of anyone in the monastery. Felix lifts his head before she arrives. She doesn’t seem surprised to see him, but does she ever look surprised? They’d seen her slash her way through the air from another dimension and jump out with pale hair and luminous eyes. There’s nothing she could do that would surprise Felix at this point either. His professor isn’t a normal human, that’s for sure, if she’s even human. Her presence is still a comfort though. Felix is fully aware of how much of himself he can accidentally expose while sparring, and something about Byleth had him spilling secrets about his motivations, about Glenn, that he’s never told anyone else. But there’s something about her that lets loose his trust and there’s no shame in being discovered like this, all curled up and staring at the night sky for answers. 

Byleth comes and leans against the wall near him. “Are you alright?” 

“Just thinking.” 

She nods and goes silent. Thank the Saints for her ability to be quiet. They stay in that blessed silence until it’s Felix himself who breaks it. “Professor?” 

She looks to him. 

“I…” What did he want to say here? “I...have more emotions than people think I do.” Ugh, that’s stupid. He’s stupid. Why did he start this conversation? He should just thank her again for saving Sylvain’s life and let it go.

But Byleth simply nods and says, “I know.”

Felix raises a brow. “You do?”

And Byleth smiles a little. “I have more emotions than people think I do as well.” 

Ah, yes. Felix smiles back, just a quick little flash of understanding between them. “How do you...how do you let people know how you feel when they can’t just understand it?”

Byleth frowns this time, more sad than angry. “I’m still trying to figure that out too.” Her eyes are like twin moons when she meets his gaze. “For this, would you like to find out together?” 

And Felix remembers, remembers well the day she offered to help him find his reason for growing stronger. He’d refused her then, but that was then, and this is now, and they’re both just sort of lost, aren’t they? 

What is it Byleth wants to say that no one can see upon her face? Can she tell what he feels? She’s always understood him so easily like that, but he doesn’t mind, not when it’s Byleth. Felix doesn’t have many people he trusts but he trusts this odd, non-human professor of his. 

“I’d like that,” he says. “To find out together.” 

Her smile returns. “I imagine it will start with actually truly talking to him.” And she pats his shoulder as she passes by and continues down the moonlit corridor with her soft, soft footsteps. 

Felix waits until she’s disappeared and then groans as he thunks his head back against the stone. She could always read him uncannily well. 

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Felix wakes early and goes outside to practice his sword drills. He can’t even feel the wound across his stomach. He’d been a little worried about it constricting the movement of his torso, but even with the scar tissue there, he can move easily from side to side, up and down, twisting and turning every which way until he’s satisfied. He feels a little weaker, but that’s from not getting any practice in—it’s hard to call beating up Sylvain ‘practice’—and he’ll gain his strength back quickly enough. The thick porridge for breakfast helps, with thick slices of bacon on the side. Saints, he’s been missing out by not travelling as a noble. 

The morning on the road passes just as it had the previous day, except perhaps more boring. They stop for lunch after travelling through a small village that borders the Itha Plains. They’ll be continuing southward and crossing through Fraldarius territory and then heading straight west so as to keep on decent roads since Itha is not well maintained in winter times. It will be just the barest visit to Fraldarius territory, which Sylvain seems nervous about—perhaps he thinks it will bring back bad memories?—but Felix is frustrated he doesn’t have time to really check the place out. Besides chasing those thieves up to Gautier land where he was injured, he hasn’t had as much time as he would like lately to be sure the villages and such are all doing well. Technically Fraldarius territory is all Sylvain’s now, so Felix doesn’t want to seem like he’s questioning his governing skills. He left the Crest ring, after all. But maybe bandits can be his unofficial jurisdiction, yeah? 

He’ll just come back on his own later, in secret. Because everything he does will be a secret to Sylvain. So it’s alright. 

It’s actually as Sylvain is helping him down from his horse for lunch that he pauses, Felix’s foot still tangled in the stirrup and Sylvain’s hands about his waist the only thing between him and gravity. “We’re making good time,” Sylvain says casually. “Would you like to walk for a while?” 

“I would  _ love _ to be off this horse,” Felix replies through gritted teeth, and Sylvain mutters a ‘whoops’ under his breath before helping Felix all the way down. He squeezes Felix’s waist a few times in apology. “Walking would be nice,” Felix admits under the force of Sylvain’s doe eyes and Sylvain grins. 

“Hope you like scones.” 

He doesn’t like scones—too sweet—but he eats two to make Sylvain happy and then sneaks some of Ms. Ada’s ginger cookies. Sylvain is beaming when he takes Felix’s hand and starts leading them down the road, other hand easily towing both horses along behind them. They’d both taken their gloves off to eat and Felix is very content to feel the tiny details in how Sylvain holds his hand, the times he unknowingly squeezes harder or lets off a bit, when his thumb moves over Felix’s knuckles, when his own fingers spasm a little in Felix’s loose grip. Silly things to focus on maybe, but to his one side is trees and to his other side is snowy plains and how Sylvain holds his hand seems much more important than either of those. Felix knows they pass into Fraldarius territory by the shape of the mountains in the distance when he takes a look, but that doesn’t seem to matter much either all of a sudden. Sylvain hums a little as he walks, one of those sea shanties Felix never had time for, and he switches from tune to tune to tune but never actually  _ in tune _ , which is part of the charm. They walk for several hours, hand in hand, meeting nobody, before Sylvain suggests saddling up to reach the inn he knows in time for dinner. Felix would be happy to forgo dinner if it meant more time holding hands—Saints, when did he turn into such a pathetic sap?—but he can’t let Sylvain go hungry. So back on the damn horse he goes. 

The Fraldarius Crest on the wall of the inn makes him raise a brow. Loyalists? Sylvain doesn’t comment though, so neither does Felix. The inn is a part of one of the territory’s more prosperous towns, where several roads leading to Fhirdiad one way and what remains of the Leicester Alliance the other way all branch off. Felix remembers coming here with Glenn, though he doesn’t remember this inn. He was mostly interested in candy shops back then. Candy shops and daggers. Glenn had been happy to supply both and then teach Felix how not to impale himself on the dagger with dark licorice as a prize for every correct form. It was a very effective way of teaching and Felix blames it entirely for his love of bitter and savory flavors. 

The inn has a much more expansive dining menu than their stay last night. Sylvain takes his time deciding while Felix orders ale and a cut of boar. He knows what he likes. 

Their room—single bed again, Felix notes—has an actual washroom attached. “Freshen up for tomorrow,” Sylvain says in almost a sigh. “Our three days will be up when we reach Fhirdiad.”

Felix nods and begins taking off his cloak. The design of it still strikes him as genius. Cloak. Swords. Belts. Boots. Vest. He’s just started on his shirt when he hears Sylvain’s footsteps behind him, and it’s not a surprise when Sylvain’s warm hands are the ones tugging his shirt away, when Sylvain’s lips are working gently on the bruises still healing on Felix’s neck. He tugs Felix’s shirt off completely and holds him fast by the shoulders as he kisses down his spine. Felix shivers and tries to keep still, but he doesn’t know what Sylvain is planning and he doubts he would ever get over the thrill of it. Sylvain’s fingers slither down his side and linger at his waistband, and Felix knows that he, for one, wouldn’t be enforcing their ‘no sex’ rule, but Sylvain is stronger than he is. He nuzzles his way back up Felix’s side and kisses his cheek. “You wash first. I need to shave and will make a mess.” 

This is a night of lasts. The last time Sylvain undoes the blue ribbon from Felix’s hair so he can wash it and comb it through his fingers. “You’re obsessed with my hair.” “Mmm. Guilty.” The last time he watches with bemusement as Sylvain tries to dab the blood away from his chin after shaving. “It’s not funny, you jerk.” It’s the last time Felix opens his arms and Sylvain slides beneath the blankets and quilts, right into place at Felix’s side. 

“I’ll get the lamp,” Felix offers, and reaches to the side table to turn off the oil lamp. 

Sylvain’s arms catch him and drag him back. “No,” Sylvain says petulantly. “Not yet.” 

Felix scoffs. “I know you’re not scared of the dar—” Sylvain’s fingers tap at his cheek and Felix turns his head to meet his eyes. They crinkle at the corners when Sylvain smiles. 

“Just wanted to look at your face a little longer.” Which of course sets Felix’s face aflame and Sylvain chuckles and kisses his forehead, his cheeks, the tip of his nose. “Just let me look a little longer. A little longer.” He has one hand stroking through Felix’s hair, the other rubbing circles on his back. As much as Felix wants to match Sylvain stare for stare, his eyelids start drooping long before Sylvain shows any signs of tiredness. He’d been trained to fall asleep quickly. “It’s alright,” he hears Sylvain whisper. “It’s alright.”

Just who is he trying to convince?

“We can’t kiss after we leave here tomorrow,” Felix says, almost hoping it’s too soft for Sylvain to hear. But Sylvain hums acknowledgement. They’ll be too close to Fhirdiad tomorrow to risk it. 

“It’s alright,” Sylvain says again, pressing their foreheads together as he lies. “It’s alright. It’s alright.” 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of blankets that feel far too itchy, which is odd, because he hasn’t had a problem with them until tonight. Felix throws the blankets onto the floor and resumes lying in bed, arms crossed behind his head and staring at the ceiling. Has the mattress always felt this lumpy? Normally he falls asleep right away, little soldier boy.

Ugh. He needs to walk. Anything to keep his mind occupied.

Felix’s wandering feet take him all around the dorms and then down onto the monastery lawn. He visits the training grounds, but for some reason he just feels tired when he reaches for his favorite training sword. He visits the cathedral. Still bashed in and haunted by a king. He visits the library, so much of it mangled or lost in the past five years. It’s almost sad, and he doesn’t get sad over those sorts of things. He eventually ends up at the pond, boots off and feet in the water. Hopefully someone has fished out any beasts that might have taken up residence. Felix sits and stares at the reflection of the moon in the water. 

A pebble lands in the moon. Felix straightens up and glances around sharply. Sylvain waves at him from the main entrance and tosses another pebble into the water. He’s got his shirt on backwards and his trousers are stuffed into his boots. Sloppy, hurried dressing. Felix knows he probably doesn’t look much better, though he checks that the buttons of his shirt are in the front at least. A few years ago he would have guessed Sylvain was back from bedding someone, maybe even a few months ago. He’s glad that the possibility is only a whisper in the back of his mind now. Sylvain must be up and about for some other reason. 

It’s a bit awkward to see him now, with just the two of them. Ever since the incident with the axe, Felix hasn’t known how to act around Sylvain. Or more, it’s been since Byleth’s suggestion that what he really needs to do is talk. He doesn’t do talking very well, so he’d fallen back on avoidance. Sylvain has been stuck in bedrest though, so it’s been pretty easy to manage. Felix will admit he feels a bit lonely without him, at the time of day he’s gotten used to bringing Sylvain breakfast so they could start the morning together. Or have dinner. Or play games at night with their chamomile tea.

Maybe now that Sylvain is fully healed they can just return to that, no talking required. So Felix sits and waits for Sylvain to stroll his way around to the wharf, out of sight of the guard, and then he simply slides into place back to back with Felix like he had some sort of invite. (He had an invite. It was Felix’s heartbeat. But nothing verbal.) “If you push me into the water…” Felix growls, and Sylvain lightens the weight he’s putting into his lean. 

“I won’t push you in,” he promises, and Felix doesn’t have any more words after that. I love you? That seems sort of direct. Probably not what Byleth meant by talking to him. He hopes Sylvain doesn’t think Felix is angry with him. 

“So,” Sylvain finally says after a few awkward minutes pass. “Gronder Field.”

Felix nods. It all seems pretty contained in those two words, doesn’t it? So far they’ve gotten away with facing only one or two of their old classmates at a time and it’s never actually come down to killing them. But it will be impossible to spare all the lives of those they know at Gronder Field, not unless they feel like laying their weapons down and being slaughtered themselves. 

“I…” Felix begins, and then clears his throat because he almost sounds like he’s about to cry, “I don’t want to fall asleep. Because then I’ll wake up and…”

“And we’ll be on the march,” Sylvain finishes. See? Sylvain gets it. And he really is very tall and broad and warm to lean against. It’s incredibly nice. They drift into silence once more. Felix stirs his feet in the water and watches the ripples vanish across the pond. 

“We should still probably sleep,” Sylvain says at last.

Felix nods reluctantly. He needs all his senses at full capacity for this battle. He’s not going to lose a single ally. Not one. He slumps when Sylvain stands up, but then Sylvain offers both hands to help Felix to his feet. He keeps one finger hooked in the hem of Felix’s sleeve as Felix stoops to grab his boots. “Come on,” he urges and Felix follows, leaving wet footprints on the path. “It took me forever to find you, you know.”

Hard thump in his chest. “You were looking for me?”

Sylvain smiles over his shoulder. “Yeah. Heard you leave your room, thought you might like some company. Didn’t know you were going to make me chase you all over the monastery though.” 

Sylvain came after him. Saints. Saints, Felix is glad it’s night. He ducks his head and bites at his lip. Don’t get excited, Fraldarius. That’s just Sylvain. He does stuff like this. For everyone. 

He came looking for  _ me _ . 

They go back up the stairs to the dorms, but when Felix tries to peel away to go to his room, Sylvain’s free hand circles his waist—he’s not going to  _ survive _ until Gronder—and keeps him going until they reach Sylvain’s room instead. His hand is awfully sweaty all of a sudden through Felix’s shirt. 

“This is a change of pace,” Felix says dryly as he can manage, crossing his arms and waiting for Sylvain to enlighten him on why he’s here. Be cold, Felix. Be a sword. Swords don’t love handsome boys with pretty smiles. And you shouldn’t love him. You’re all sharp edges.

Sylvain sits on a bed of rumpled sheets and pats the space beside him with eyes crinkling at the corners. “Come on. Just like old times. And old  _ old _ times.”

Felix scoffs even as he drops his boots to the floor, fingers numb. Ignores his racing pulse. Be a sword, be a sword, be a sword. 

I’m a sword who really wants to sleep in Sylvain’s bed tonight. But if the goal is not to love him, then I can’t think of anything more detrimental to the cause than this. And it won’t mean the same to him as it will to me. Just like old times? Nothing is like old times. I didn’t love you like this in the old times. Not this burning love that threatens to leap out of my chest with every heartbeat. 

“I’m not going to sleep with you for sentimental reasons.” He replays that sentence in his head and feels the blush come racing in. 

“Whoa, Felix.” Calloused hands take his wrists before he can cover his face, Sylvain off the bed and right in front of him before Felix can even draw breath. Still such sweaty hands. “I know what you meant.” Sylvain’s smile is sweet and crooked and still so real in a way Felix can’t get used to. “I just...I guess…” If he had a hand free, Felix knows he would scratch at his head, because Sylvain fidgets when he’s nervous and he’s nervous now. If he’s nervous, why did he even bring Felix here? “I remember sleeping really well next to you,” Sylvain finally continues. “Do you remember my first night at your place? When we made that fort out of pillows and blankets and stayed up so late we heard the birds chirping? I still think that was one of the best nights of my life.”

Felix’s breath bottles up in his throat. Sylvain still remembers that? And even with all the girls he’s dated, the nights he must have had...playing fort and eating stolen biscuits with Felix still ranks up there at all?

“I can’t believe you remember that,” he finally chokes out. Sylvain lets go of his wrists and Felix’s hands drop to his sides as Sylvain takes a step back and chuckles. 

“Well, yeah. It was really fun. And every time you’d let me sleep in your bed here? It wasn’t as fun—I blame the lack of blanket forts—but it meant a lot to me, that you still cared. Even though I acted like a jackass and brought all that trouble on myself.” 

Felix rolls his eyes at the memory. Saints, he’d hated that. Hated that jealousy. Probably let Sylvain sleep so close just to prove that he was Felix’s for the night, even if only that night. “You did have a  _ lot _ of girls you needed to hide from.” 

And there goes the hand, rubbing at the thatch of hair. “Yeaaah. They just…” He winces in that way he does before admitting a lie. 

Felix groans and pushes past Sylvain to collapse on the bed. He stares at the ceiling and bemoans his own naïvety. “You fucking lied to me. There were no girls.” He hadn’t needed to be jealous.

“There were girls!” Sylvain protests immediately. And then, in a smaller voice, he adds, “Maybe some nights I just...wanted to sleep next to you. Like I was homesick or something. That’s all.” 

That’s all? Doesn’t he realize just what...just how…?

“You could have just gone and visited home if you were homesick!” Felix sits upright and jabs a finger in what he hopes is a northerly direction.

Sylvain, in contrast, throws his hands in the air with no direction at all. They’re getting too loud and soon someone will come knocking. “You barely even talked to me! I had to run around after you training and training and training just to get a conversation!”

“What does this have to do with being homesick?”

“You can be homesick for a person!” Sylvain snaps, and those last words drop into silence. Felix gapes. Sylvain pales. 

His heart feels like someone is squeezing it hard. Homesick for a person? 

Is that what he should call how  _ he _ felt? All that time, homesick for a person?

He stares at Sylvain, who is standing rooted to the spot. He had no idea Sylvain had...had missed him too, not the same way. Had...had…

He’s really glad he’s sitting down. Felix takes a deep breath and risks meeting Sylvain’s eyes, hoping to find some sort of answer there, some sort of truth. 

Sylvain’s eyes are big and beseeching and reflect the light of the moon outside. There’s something different in the way he’s staring at Felix. Something Felix doesn’t recognize. Something new, and he isn’t sure what it is. Not sure Sylvain would know what it is either but Felix is scared to ask.

Talk to him, Byleth had said. But Felix is terrible at talking. Everyone knows that. 

“Felix, I…” Sylvain says, and his voice is different too. And maybe Felix understands why Sylvain had smiled at him as he took that axe to the side. “I promised myself I’d do this slow and careful, so I’m probably fucking it all up…”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Oh great Bridge of Myrddin, please let Sylvain see me. A stupid wish, but it was a wish on a tale that Sylvain made up for him, and maybe that was what made it powerful.

He’s just a puppet now, tugged along by the same hand that has this grip on his heart. He shuffles across the bed to make room for another person and, eyes fixed on the ceiling, pats the mattress. He hopes that works in place of his words. He doesn’t look as Sylvain pauses, and then takes those few extra steps he needs. He sits and the mattress dips, and then Felix hears Sylvain tugging his boots off. Felix’s own feet have a light coating of dust from walking damp down the hallway, but he doesn’t think that matters now. The mattress shifts some more as Sylvain lies down, and then Felix takes in a deep breath before letting his arms guide him down too. Sylvain is even bulkier now than he had been as a teenager and Felix has muscled up too so there’s no way this is going to work without them being pressed together somehow. This was dumb. This was dumb, this was dumb, this was dumb and only brought on by stress and lack of sleep. Otherwise no way would his brain have supplied this as a valid option. 

You shouldn’t love him. 

But you do.

He lies down facing Sylvain, head tilted so his face is pressed against Sylvain’s chest, right where he can feel the slow intake and release of breath. He can hear the rumble of Sylvain’s voice too, when he asks, “Are you okay?” 

Felix nods. He doesn’t trust his own voice to answer. 

Sylvain doesn’t buy it. “Really? It isn’t...sudden?” 

Felix is so glad he doesn’t have to see Sylvain’s face. “It’s fine. A little odd, but...fine.” 

Because oh Goddess, Sylvain is still so warm. He’s warm and solid and his breath is steady and his voice vibrates in his chest and all those times Felix had wanted Sylvain to finally  _ see him _ waiting off to the side—see me, see me, see me—he hadn’t even allowed himself to imagine what this would feel like. To be seen.

All those times he’d helped Sylvain hide from real and imaginary girls, jealous to his core, he’d been thinking he was only a refuge. There aren’t any girls now. He’s not a refuge. He’s a choice. Sylvain chose to find him on the grounds. He chose to bring Felix to his room. And he chose to ask Felix to sleep beside him with a look in his eye that Felix doesn’t know and it will fucking destroy him to let his heart run away like this but maybe he wished on a stupid bridge and it actually worked.

“I have to put my arm somewhere,” Sylvain warns him, and then a careful arm is placed woodenly across Felix’s shoulder, awkward as anything. Felix sucks at his lip for a moment and then, mostly because he has his face hidden and that gives him courage, he reaches up and taps light fingers on Sylvain’s arm. 

“Okay. It’s okay.” 

Slowly, Sylvain relaxes his arm, allows it to curl around Felix’s shoulder blade in a way that brings them even closer together. Felix keeps his fingers where he’d tapped, trying to reciprocate in some way. He inhales the smell of armor polish and horses. Homesick for a person. Is that all love is? Is when you feel homesick for them when they aren’t there, perfectly complete but just not...at home?

Normal friends don’t sleep all cuddled together, do they? Sylvain has to know what he’s doing, right? Right? 

“I really did want to do this carefully,” Sylvain mumbles. “But with Gronder Field coming up I just...wanted to hold you, I guess. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Felix replies immediately, almost embarrassingly fast. He feels his face grow hot. “We...um…” He coughs a little. “I...I don’t know what this means...to you, but I think maybe we shouldn’t tell other people just yet.”

Sylvain hums and then says, soft, “I think some people might know.” 

“What?” Felix jerks his head back, right into where Sylvain has already placed his palm to catch it so he doesn’t hit the wall. People know? Know what? About him? They’ve seen through him? But he thought he hid it so well!

“I’m not good at being discreet,” Sylvain mumbles, embarrassed, and Felix blinks up at him. 

“Wait...you...people, with you…?” He’s confused.

Sylvain laughs and cradles Felix’s head to his chest, curling around him completely. “The whole world could figure out how I feel about you before you even have a clue.” 

Felix would object to that except he’s still a bit confused and, honestly, starting to feel a little tired now.

Sylvain wasn’t being discreet? About...his...he has...

Sylvain feels...the way Felix does?

Does that mean that Sylvain loves...loves hi—? 

He won’t ask. If he doesn’t ask, he won’t get the answer he’s scared of. 

He’s scared of either answer.

But he also feels so safe, tucked into Sylvain’s arms, and he feels better with Sylvain safe in his arms too, and he doesn’t want any wrong answers to ruin it.

“Your hands are really sweaty,” he points out instead, and only pretends to grumble when Sylvain wipes them on Felix’s own shirt before laughing and carrying them both into sleep.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Felix wakes before Sylvain. That’s no surprise. His swords lie untouched, however. No training this morning. Instead, Felix snuggles further into Sylvain and sighs. He’s not sure what sort of sigh it is. Happy because he’s here right now? Sad because this is the last time? Miserable because this is his own damn fault but he doesn’t know what else he could possibly do now? Yeah, all three. 

Mumble mumble from Sylvain. 

“What?” 

“Your feet are fucking cold,” Sylvain says with a little more clarity, but his arms just wrap around Felix and pull him closer. “Goddess, you’ve always had such cold feet.” 

Felix rubs his nose into Sylvain’s chest beneath the covers. Inhales the scent of soap. “When will we reach Fhirdiad?” 

“If we leave soon? Around noon. I told Ingrid three days to give us some breathing space. She won’t expect us until nightfall.” 

“What time will the innkeeper kick us out?” 

“Not for a couple hours yet,” Sylvain answers, and ducks beneath the covers as well, hands finding Felix’s face and kissing him deep. “Morning breath,” he complains, but doesn’t stop kissing. Lazy kiss after lazy kiss, as if this isn’t their last morning, their last chance. They kiss in the bed, lying side by side. Kiss with Felix in Sylvain’s lap. Kiss with Sylvain hovering over Felix, forcing him to raise his head for every kiss, smiling into it. Kiss after going to grab biscuits with gravy for breakfast, and then kiss with breath smelling of biscuits and gravy. Felix finds that place on Sylvain’s neck he finds oddly kissable and spends time there, just kissing since Sylvain’s collar is a little looser and bruises on his neck will cause a lot more speculation in the royal court. Sylvain makes happy little sounds and rubs at Felix’s back, easing out the tension that’s been building there at the thought of arriving in the capital. They pack their things and wash up and get dressed, taking long intervals to kiss in between. Goddess, they’re more desperate than ever, Felix thinks, impatient since he can’t kiss Sylvain while Sylvain braids his hair. 

Sylvain doesn’t return to his simple riding clothes today. He’ll be the Margrave Gautier when they arrive in Fhirdiad, and the Margrave Gautier doesn’t wear simple leather trousers. He doesn’t even wear something sensible, like his armor from back in the war. He wears one of those shirts with the really frilly collar. The deep red color contrasts with his skin, making him look paler than normal. The sleeves also frill out in a ridiculous fashion and Felix thanks the Saints for giving his own outfit normal sleeves. Sylvain shrugs on a breastplate reminiscent of what he once wore, but this one is thin metal all engraved with roses and stuff, completely for show. His trousers are white which is poor planning for travel, but the boots Sylvain slides on rise above the knee, black, so the trousers should be actually pretty safe. The boots are also stitched with silver with more intricate patterns of roses on the space where leather turns to black velvet to fit around his thighs. 

Sylvain slips two rings from a pouch he’d carried with his clothes. The Fraldarius and Gautier rings, placed on separate fingers due to their size. Sylvain must feel Felix’s eyes because he gestures grandly to himself. “Do I look like a right fop or what?” 

“A ridiculous fop,” Felix agrees, though his eyes had been more on the rings. “High boots are supposed to be  _ my _ thing.”

Sylvain sighs dramatically. “I remember those boots. Used to fantasize about slowly taking them off you.” 

Felix tries to ignore the jolt in his stomach. Don’t get excited. “Oh really?” 

“Really.” Sylvain shoves his sleeves up to the elbows. It doesn’t help much with his general fop-ishness, although the colors look nice on him. “Stupid younger me really should have said something sooner. He could have taken those boots off of you, lived the dream.” 

Felix snorts. Yeah, they both missed out on that one. “Here, let me help with your cape thing.” It’s a simple velvet cloak that is cut at the waist and only covers one arm, black with the same ornamental silver stitching. But it’s functional. If Sylvain carried a weapon, the cape wouldn’t impede him at all. And it does, Felix can admit, add a final bit of regality. He tries to smooth Sylvain’s hair down, gives up, and makes certain all the ribbons and fiddly bits are tied tight. “Well, you look decent.”

“Only decent?” Sylvain winks and Felix rolls his eyes. 

“If you want a swoon, find someone else to share your bed with.” He picks up his cloak and attaches it, clip by clip. Goddess, he’s still so enamored by this design. When he finds Leonie and the others he’ll see if they can get kitted out like this. The woolen interior of his cloak feels ridiculously decadent when he thinks back over the winters he’s endured. 

“Well, I think you look amazing,” Sylvain drawls from where Felix left him, and it’s such an awful cry for attention Felix has to laugh. He goes back and takes Sylvain’s face in both hands. 

“Sorry, am I not appreciating your handsomeness enough?” He leans up and kisses the side of Sylvain’s mouth. Sylvain’s hands close at his waist and Sylvain smiles as he turns his head to catch Felix’s lips. 

“Mm, yeah. I’m feeling very underappreciated.” 

“Let me make up for that.” 

He kisses Sylvain until his feet hurt from standing on his toes, and then Sylvain just picks him up at the waist—groans about the weight—and carries him the short distance he can manage to the bed so they can continue. Felix’s half-hearted protests about wrinkling their clothes last about five seconds. Then he has other things to think about. 

The sun is nearly to the top of the sky when Sylvain sighs. “We should probably be going.” His eyes shine with the sunlight and his hair is like fire where he holds himself above Felix, lips swollen with kisses. 

“We agreed no kissing outside this inn,” Felix reminds him, wishing that fact didn’t make him as upset as it does. 

“We did,” Sylvain agrees, and brushes Felix’s hair from his eyes. “I guess we should have a last kiss.” 

Felix nods and strains his head upwards, eyes shut, to capture Sylvain’s lips with his. He loops his arms around Sylvain’s neck to keep himself steady, and lets himself get lost in the gentle motion of Sylvain’s lips against his. If things have to end, let them end like this. 

Sylvain lowers himself so Felix is back on the mattress. When Felix opens his eyes, Sylvain is scowling. 

“What?” 

“That one was no good. I had my eyes closed.” 

Felix makes a face. “Aren’t you supposed to have your eyes closed?

Sylvain hums and haws for a moment. “I want to see your face though.” 

“Alright, then kiss me again.” Not that he’s objecting to another kiss, but Felix can’t stop himself from being annoyed by the inefficiency. Character flaw. He keeps his own eyes closed when Sylvain lowers his mouth, but midway through the kiss he wonders what Sylvain’s face looks like as well. He opens one eye, and then the other, but Sylvain’s eyes are hooded, barely open really. Felix feels his heart stutter at the sight, but then Sylvain’s eyes pop open fully and they spend several seconds staring at each like fish in separate bowls until Sylvain makes the stupidest expression and crosses his eyes. Felix snorts hard, accidentally spraying spit all over Sylvain’s chin, and falls back into the bed, covering his face with a hand. “You dumbass,” he gasps through his laughter. “You utter, complete…”

Fingers interlace with the ones covering his face and then Sylvain kisses him hard, pressing Felix further into the mattress. He’s laughing too, laughs as he pulls away for a brief second, wiping the spit from his chin with that stupid frilly sleeve and he’s so beautiful, when Felix opens his eyes to watch, with eyes creasing at the corners and an uneven smirk across his face. Felix grabs his collar, doesn’t care about the breastplate crushing his chest, and kisses him, smile for smile, feels Sylvain’s eyelashes on his cheekbones, tugs at Sylvain’s lip with his teeth, still muttering insults as Sylvain laughs. “Ridiculous. Bonehead. Moron. Complete idiot, Sylvain, I can’t believe how much I…” 

How much I love you, you ridiculous, boneheaded, moronic idiot. Once upon a time I thought I thought I’d already spent my love with a brother who never even got a grave, but somehow you made more love inside me. Or found more. Or maybe it’s just that you helped  _ me _ find more, the love I’d stowed so deep and dark so I couldn’t be hurt again. Never love so you can never lose. And you forced me into loving again. So now I lose. 

But as he laughs into a final kiss, Felix can’t find it in him to regret. 

Sylvain is conscious of his breastplate and rolls over, bringing Felix with him, as their laughter peters into chuckles and then little breathy giggles. Felix makes a trail of kisses from Sylvain’s mouth to his ear and travels back and forth a few times. Sylvain’s hands massage his back beneath his cloak. 

“I think...that was a good last kiss. If there has to be one.” Felix scolds himself as soon as he finishes the sentence. He’s the one leaving. He doesn’t get to complain. 

Sylvain reaches his hand up to fiddle with Felix’s mussed hair. “Yeah,” he agrees, voice husky. “That was a good one.” He still catches Felix’s hand and kisses his fingers before standing and trying to beat the wrinkles out of his outfit. Felix rolls his eyes as Sylvain fussily re-ties the blue ribbon in his hair but then gathers up their luggage and his swords wrapped in his extra clothes before he heads for the door. He doesn’t need to look quite as presentable as Sylvain—he’s only a personal guard, after all. 

The horses are still as awfully horse-like as they were when they left them in the stables last night. Felix cautiously affixes the saddlebags and leaves the rest for Sylvain. In the meantime, he steals some coins from Sylvain’s pack and goes to pay for room and board. He’s just sorting out change with the innkeeper when Sylvain appears, taking the steps two at a time and appearing distinctly un-margrave-like. “Oh, are we good then?” he asks, running a hand through his hair. Felix nods and lets Sylvain lead the way to deal with the horses. The extra coins go into his belt pouch.

Felix tries to take control of the infernal animal once they get on the road. He snaps the reins a bit—carefully, in case she bites—and the horse mildly picks up her pace until Felix is riding more at Sylvain’s side rather than behind him. Sylvain smiles at him and the journey turns warm and wonderful, even if they don’t talk through it. The road does get busier as they near Fhirdiad and the snows didn’t seem to have hit this area at all yet. Give it a few weeks. Heading in and out of the city are merchants with carts, travellers on foot with huge packs, and others on horses who vary from craftsmen to who might be minor lords or town representatives, judging by how stupid their clothing is. Felix entertains himself by counting the number of hats with ridiculous exotic feathers he sees. He’s gotten to a nice amount when Sylvain reaches out across the distance between them and taps Felix’s leg. “Fhirdiad is about an hour away. Do you want to eat?” 

Felix shakes the thought of feathers from his head. It’s way gone noon, and will probably be heading into dusk by the time they’re in the city. “What was the schedule?”

Sylvain ticks it off on his fingers. “Visit Ingrid and Ashe. And then you...you…” He clears his throat and stares at the sky. “You find information on Leonie and head out to...wherever she is. I’ll go give Dimitri that trade deal and stay a couple days to cover everything. And then I head back to Gautier territory. Both of us right back where we should be.” He clears his throat again. “So if we time this right, we get to eat Ashe’s cooking.” 

Felix nods and pulls his hood up. It’s deep enough to obscure most of his face. It’s better to be incognito from now on. “I wouldn’t object to taking advantage of Ashe’s cooking.” 

“Okay, good.” Sylvain breathes out a sigh of relief. “Because I didn’t portion correctly and we have no lunch.” 

Felix is glad the hood is deep enough to hide his smile. 

***

It’s been awhile since he was in Fhirdiad, but nothing has changed much so arriving is not that much more exciting than counting trees. In a city this old, major renovations would...well, he supposes that there had been some accidental renovations during the war, but everything was repaired to just how it was. Even the cobblestones feel the same beneath his boots as they lead their horses through the yammering crowds. Felix still knows the streets well enough, the major buildings. Sighs at the sight of the palace but that’s unfortunately their destination. Royal knights are given quarters within palace grounds if they so wish, and Ingrid and Ashe had taken up that offer. Thank the Saints that there’s a smaller gate to enter through to reach their quarters more quickly, rather than entering through the main gates and walking the twenty minutes around to the barracks. Sylvain flashes his rings at the side gate, shows his papers, mentions Felix as his personal guard, and they’re through. Sylvain doesn’t take long in tossing a coin over to have the horses looked after as well. They just have to retrieve the saddlebags first and make sure those precious documents regarding the trade agreement are still there. Sylvain keeps the satchel on him. Felix keeps his hood tucked up. He hasn’t been recognized or seen anyone he knows, but this close to the palace is dangerous ground. Saints, what if Dimitri is taking a casual stroll?

It’s just Ashe and Ingrid, he reminds himself. You’re just saying hi to Ashe and Ingrid. Especially Ingrid. You owe her this. 

When Felix was a squire, they were clustered all together in a dormitory. The residences for knights are more like cottages, spaced equal distance apart. “Number twenty-three with the blue window boxes,” Sylvain mutters to himself as he leads the way down the path. “Or was it thirty-two?” Felix catches his elbow and points to cottage twenty-three. It has pale blue window boxes that doubtless house lovely flowers come the spring. Sylvain makes a small noise of triumph but then looks back at Felix, ducking slightly to see his face beneath the hood. “Are you ready?”

“Just knock.” 

Sylvain sighs, takes a few steps up the little walkway, and knocks at the door. 

“Come on in!” a voice calls from inside, and Felix shrugs before lowering his hood and entering after Sylvain.    
  
He has the impression of a small room, lots of cupboards. Probably a kitchen. He doesn’t get further than that.

“Felix!” That’s all the warning he gets before Ashe has launched himself in for a hug and Felix has no choice but to catch him or let him splat on the floor. 

“Ashe, fucking hell...” 

“It  _ is  _ Felix!” Ashe’s smile hasn’t dimmed one bit. He beams up at Felix, arms wrapped solidly around his torso. His hair is longer now, his face lost the last of the baby fat, but the freckles are the same. The way he practically sparkles is the same. Felix is just about to say something nice about it too when his ear is nearly wrenched off his head. 

“Felix Hugo Fraldarius!” someone shouts in his poor abused ear. “Do you have any idea how worried we were about you?” 

“Hi Ingrid,” he croaks, one arm keeping Ashe from falling and the other desperately groping at Ingrid’s hand to hopefully escape this reunion without parts coming off. He’s got his gloves on so it’s a little difficult to find purchase.

“Hi? That’s what you have to say to me? Hi?” She huffs in annoyance and lets him go, stomping over to the small wooden table in the center of the room and perching on the edge, arms crossed. Felix pats Ashe on the back and releases his hold. Ashe retracts his hug but he hums happily as he crosses to the little wood stove in the corner. He putters about filling the kettle and getting tea prepared. Ingrid glares at Felix. Sylvain crosses his hands behind his head, whistles a little tune, and goes to sit down, chair pushed back and his long legs spread out to cross at the ankle atop the table. Felix, for his part, rubs at his ear and looks anywhere but at Ingrid’s face. 

Ashe passes between them to find tea in one of the cupboards. “This is going to be a very awkward evening with you two fighting like that,” he says mildly. 

“I’m angry,” Ingrid protests. 

Ashe just resumes humming and retreats back to the stove with the tea. 

Ingrid crosses her legs to match her arms. Her hair is cropped up even shorter now, Felix notices when he risks a glance. Practical. More practical than his own. Suddenly he feels intensely ridiculous in these expensive clothes with this hairstyle Sylvain is so keen to redo in the mornings. He’s all trussed up while Ingrid and Ashe wear leather padding and cotton to stay warm on patrol, soaring above the city to seek out potential threats. Both of them are much more muscular now too. Holding an axe or riding a pegasus for hours on end for a couple years straight will do that to you. And now, they’ll try to get some sleep before resuming their duty of guarding Fhirdiad. Of guarding the king. The thief and the noble’s daughter, now perfect examples of the knights they dreamt of being. 

He might still scoff at their idea of knighthood, but he can’t scoff at where they are now. Not that he thinks he can mention anything about knighthood without Ingrid being mad at him. But she’s already mad at him. He’s not sure what else he could do at this point to make her even more angry. Less angry, that’s the way.

“I’m sorry,” he tries, because that seems like a good first step. 

“Oh, you’re sorry, now? Like that will—” Ingrid cuts herself off and Felix can see her pinching the bridge of her nose from the corner of his eye. “No, no, I’m not going to do that. You’re a grown man and it’s not my job to keep you in line anymore.” She turns to Sylvain instead and whacks his feet. “Get these off the table.” 

“I’m a grown man and it’s not your job—” Sylvain laughs when she hits the side of his head and retracts his feet from the table. “You look well, Ingrid. Both of you.” 

“Flattery won’t work, Sylvain,” Ingrid says, but there’s no bite to it. Her gaze jerks back to Felix, still hovering by the door. “Come sit down, Felix. We’ll have some tea and dinner afterwards, alright?” Her tone has shifted into something much kinder and she even smiles when he meets her gaze. Felix smiles back, almost weak-kneed in relief. She doesn’t hate him. She doesn’t hate him. At least not completely. “You can make yourselves a little more at home,” Ingrid adds. “Here, Sylvain, let me help with your cape…”

Felix unclips his cloak and hangs it on the hook near the door, next to the thick parkas Ingrid and Ashe must wear when flying. He tosses his gloves on the floor beneath just in time for Ashe to finish tea. 

“Here, Felix, you can sit here,” Ashe says, indicating the end of the table kitty-corner to both Ingrid and Sylvain. “Ah, I hope I remembered correctly, but no sugar, just a hint of milk, right?” 

Felix nods and pulls the teacup towards himself. He can feel Ingrid and Ashe’s eyes on him, appraising. He wonders what changes they see, what they think when they see him now. Well, it’s a better impression that Sylvain got at least, bleeding out in his bed. He feels a foot kick his beneath the table, and then Sylvain hooks their ankles together with his stupidly long legs. Felix smiles into his cup. Everything’s alright. 

“So you’ve been a mercenary?” As always, Ashe’s chatter puts things at ease. “You’ve been all over the place, I bet!”

“Not that exciting,” Felix mumbles, trying to put a full stop to the Adventures of Felix the Noble Mercenary before Ashe can really get going. “Old Empire territory mostly. Lots of unrest.” 

“Yeah, Dimitri is constantly worried about the old Empire,” Ingrid agrees, crossing her hands beneath her chin. “You know he’s travelling down there soon, to Enbarr?” 

“Ooh, yes!” That actually gets Sylvain excited, and then he’s the one chattering about von Aegir writing Dimitri’s speech and all that junk about Empire loyalists in a way that makes Felix raise an eyebrow, Ingrid drop her chin just slightly, and Ashe look silently bemused. Sylvain catches onto their expressions maybe five minutes in. “What? What are the looks for?” 

Felix shakes his head. Ashe shrugs. Ingrid lowers her hands and taps her fingers on the table in contemplation. “I rarely hear you talk about political matters so...enthusiastically,” she says at last. 

“Like it’s a bad thing?” 

“No! Not at all! Just unusual!” 

Ashe stands and jerks his head at Felix over Sylvain and Ingrid’s back-and-forth that seems to be devolving into some older conversation that never got resolved. “Felix, want to help with dinner?” 

Thank the Goddess for Ashe Ubert. 

Of course, helping Ashe with dinner is basically taking a bowl and stirring until Ashe takes it back, stirs it  _ better _ , and then hands you the next bowl to stir with your inferior skills. 

“We’re doing fish tonight,” Ashe explains. “Fried fish with a breadcrumb coating and sauce, with sides of stew and mixed greens with a peach dressing. But Dedue gave me the stew so we just need to heat it up.” 

Felix smiles at that. “Dedue gives you food?” 

“We exchange dishes and new recipes whenever I end up in the palace. Or he comes down here.” Ashe takes the bowl from Felix’s arms and stirs it better. “Okay. Just...you just watch now, I think. But yes! We keep in touch quite regularly.” Ashe seems to have four arms to handle everything he’s cooking all at once. “It’s easy when we all live so close, of course. We see Dimitri pretty often too. He sneaks down to the training grounds before any of his guards or even Dedue can catch him. He’s asked me to train him in the axe. We don’t see Mercedes or Annette very often, but they must be busy, with the orphans they’ve taken in. The Professor is here as often as she can be. I never can get used to calling her the Archbishop, but she doesn’t mind, I think. Um...and then there’s you. We all worried quite a bit when you disappeared. And then Flayn disappeared as well.”

“ _ What _ ?” Felix winces when both Sylvain and Ingrid look over and then continues much more quietly. “I mean, what? Flayn’s missing?” 

Ashe blinks at him, not even bothering to watch what he’s doing to the fish in the pan. “I would have thought Sylvain would have told you. But yes, Flayn went missing shortly after the war ended. Seteth disappeared as well, so it seems reasonable they went somewhere together. They had been living in seclusion before they came to the monastery, right?” 

Felix grunts. Flayn. The tiny girl throwing firewood at him. He’d rather hoped he would see her again, but apparently he lost his chance by running out of Enbarr. 

“Mind setting out drinks and cutlery?” Ashe asks. “We have wine if you want it, but Ingrid and I will have water.” 

Felix sets four glasses of water on the table—the ale he and Sylvain drank last night was enough alcohol for a week—and tries to arrange the cutlery best he can. He’s leaning over Ingrid placing her fork when she reaches out and squeezes his hand in hers for a second or two before letting go. Felix hovers there for a brief moment, but Ingrid doesn’t seem to want to do anything else, so he moves on. A peace offering? He really just needs to talk to Ingrid alone. 

Dinner is of standard Ashe quality, so pretty much the best thing Felix has eaten in years. Ashe and Ingrid are happy to supply most of the conversation, talking about schedule rotations and the new filly Ingrid is training to be her mount. Felix can tell they want to ask him everything, but he’d so much rather hear about the new filly. 

“Dandelion is a dumb name,” he scoffs once when Sylvain suggests it. He turns to Ingrid. “Ask Dedue about the names of flowers from Duscur. I bet there’s a pretty one.” 

“I like dandelions!” Sylvain protests around a mouthful of fish. 

Ingrid makes a sound of remembrance and snaps her fingers a few times. “Yes! And you would always tell us to make a wish and then blow all the seeds away before we could!” 

“What? I didn’t do that!”

“You did! When we were kids! You did, I remember.”

Felix nods. “You did. Jerk.”

“You stole their wishes, Sylvain?” Ashe’s voice could break your heart, but he’s snickering. 

Sylvain swallows and leans back in his chair, hands crossed behind his head. “Okay, maybe I did. Maybe I was investing.” 

“In dandelion wishes? No, that settles it, I’m talking to Dedue. Felix is right.” Ingrid nods firmly and pushes her empty plate away. “Thanks Ashe. The food was wonderful.” 

“Have you ever had a meal you thought wasn’t wonderful?” Sylvain asks, pushing his luck. She cocks a brow. 

“I said the food was wonderful. The meal itself was lacking due to terrible company.” 

Felix swallows his water really quickly so he won’t choke on Sylvain’s offended expression. He pushes his plate away as well and starts to help clean up, but Ingrid is all grace as she takes his elbow and leads him towards the front door instead. “Join me for a minute?” Felix nods and takes his cloak from the hook, simply slinging it about his shoulders while Ingrid grabs her coat and a hat. They slip out the front door while Ashe and Sylvain start up a lively conversation over washing dishes. 

Ingrid leads Felix with plucks to his cloak, away from the cottages and towards the stables. Great. More horses. And horses with wings. They snort and stamp their feet and groom their plumage. “You fell off my pegasus one time, didn’t you?” Ingrid muses. 

“Yes, and the fear remains.” Horses he can barely stomach but if she’s planning on putting him on a pegasus, he’s done. Ingrid just laughs at his expression and leads him towards a small pen. 

“I just want to see my filly.” She leans up against the fence, Felix at her side. Together they gaze in on the young pegasus, curled in sleep near a pile of hay. Ingrid goes on in a whisper, “I’ll be the one training her soon. Which will mean more work for Ashe around the house but I don’t think he minds.” She ducks her head a little and smiles. “I’m very lucky.” 

In another world, Ingrid would have married Glenn. She would be his sister, sort of. She might have become a knight. Maybe not. How would the war have changed if Glenn had lived? Felix turns his back on the filly and leans on the fence for support. It’s grown dark, as dark as it can get in a city this size. His breath is smoke in the air. “Ingrid?” he asks. 

“Yes Felix?” She turns too, and stands beside him so their arms touch.

He sighs. “You don’t have to keep pretending to not be angry.”

“I’m very angry,” she replies easily. “That’s why we’re here. So I won’t yell. If I yell I’ll wake her up.” She pauses, and then leans more into him. “But I’m also so happy to know you’re alright. And I’m happy you came to visit. Even though I still think you should see Dimitri, at least I can see you for myself and you can tell me with your own words why you left us like that.” 

Felix bites at his lip and plays with the fur fringe of his cloak. “It’s...difficult to explain. I made the choice pretty quickly and...and didn’t feel like I could go back after that.” He breathes out slowly and shuts his eyes. The smell. That’s another reason he hates horses.

“Felix?” Ingrid’s voice, prompting. 

He opens his eyes and lifts them to where the stars should be. But they’re hidden by the bright lights of the city. He can barely make them out, no matter how he squints. What was it Sylvain had said and then tried to brush off? Something about lonely stars? Felix frowns as his fingers curl tighter into his cloak. “The more I’m forced to think about it lately, the less sense it makes,” he admits in a soft voice, far more vulnerable than he would have liked. 

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Ingrid says, shaking her head. “I just want to know that there was a reason. That you didn’t just leave without thinking about us, about how we would miss you.” Her final words are strangled, and Felix turns to her, not expecting the hug. But then she’s hugging him just the same, face buried in his neck and the bundle of his cloak where he’d been fiddling with it. Her arms wrap around his middle and, after a moment of stunned immobility, he folds his arms over her shoulders. 

Saints, what is he supposed to say? He bites at his lip a little more and finally starts. “Did you ever wonder why our fathers didn’t arrange a marriage between us after Glenn died?” 

Ingrid turns her face up to him, bemused. “Because we would have killed each other.” 

“We would have!” Felix huffs a laugh and holds her closer, stares at those hidden stars. “Because I’m nothing like Glenn. I wasn’t raised to be the heir. I was raised to be a second son. I would become a knight, serving the royal family, and Glenn would take over as Lord Fraldarius.” He misses Glenn so much in these moments, even after so long. It’s like a physical wound that has never healed. The hole Glenn left in the world when he was stolen from it seems to only get larger with time. He should be the one wearing the Fraldarius Crest ring, the one advising Dimitri, taking up the mantle of the Shield of Faerghus. The one telling Felix what to do. “Ingrid, I had a reason,” he says at last. “Please just trust me when I tell you that.”

She’s silent for a moment, and then pulls away from his chest to lay a hand on his face, brows twisted. “And there’s nothing I can do to take that reason away?” 

He turns his face away. No. This is something Ingrid can’t fix. She doesn’t withdraw her hand. They stand there, extremities going numb in the cold, for a long while, and then Ingrid uses her hand to push his gaze back to meet hers. “So you won’t stay.” It’s not a question. Ingrid sighs and her hand pats Felix’s face several times before falling away to his shoulder. Her face falls as well, eyes on their boots. “You’re so stubborn, Felix.”

He shrugs. “Yeah. So they tell me.” She sniffs and wipes at her nose. “Shit, are you crying?”

“It’s cold!” She wipes at her nose again as she lifts her head to give him the evil eye. “Let’s get inside.” And she starts to walk away. 

“Wait!” Felix stretches out a hand after her and then feels silly when she turns back. “That’s...that’s all? That’s all you want from me?” 

Ingrid grimaces. “Felix, I wanted so much more from you that you took away when you disappeared. But now I have you here in front of me, and you say you had a good reason for leaving us, and you look healthy, and you are alive. That is more than I ever expected to get. So come with me now and get back inside. I’m cold.” When he doesn’t move, she rolls her eyes and grabs his outstretched hand. “You’re one of my boys,” she says fondly as she drags him from the stables. “I’ll never leave behind the job of making sure that you’re all alright.” 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Ingrid looks content and Felix is even smiling a little—just a little, barely noticeable—when they return, and Sylvain can finally breathe properly again. He goes to Felix in the pretense of taking his cloak. “Everything alright?” he asks, quiet as he can. Felix nods stiffly. “You should probably head out soon,” Sylvain continues, brain completely disengaged, “If you want to find information on Leonie.” Wait, what? What did he just say? Oh yes, genius, let’s just urge Felix out the door and out of your life. Great idea, you utter moron. 

“Probably should,” Felix agrees in a mumble, and that’s it, isn’t it? The inevitable.

Sylvain coughs and lets his hand linger on Felix’s shoulder way longer than necessary. Anything, anything he can get at this point.

Now that they’ve come to the moment Felix is going to walk away forever, Sylvain doesn’t know what to do. What he  _ wants _ to do is throw himself at Felix’s feet, latch onto his leg, and get dragged all over the city, professing his love. But what good would it do? Felix had his mind made up from the moment he woke wrapped in bandages and tried to run away from the mansion. And it would be the worst thing he could do now, to tell Felix he loves him. Felix might have figured that out for himself already, sure, because it’s not like Sylvain has bothered being subtle. But it would be a dirty guilt trip, trying to make reasons for Felix to stay at this point. So Sylvain will buck up and smile and see Felix off with all the good wishes he can and pray to the Goddess that if Felix ever shows up in his bed again it’s not while bleeding out. 

He watches Felix closely while they all have another mug of tea, chamomile. Watches his facial expressions, the way he moves his arms and the stance of his legs. Watches the darting motion of his eyes and the quick flit of his mouth, the way he brushes a few stray hairs behind his ear and the way he smiles when he meets Sylvain’s eyes, all warm and soft and everything the Sylvain of years ago would have killed to be looked at with. Too soon, far too soon, they are putting the mugs in the sink and—wait a moment, slow down—Felix is saying his goodbyes to Ashe and Ingrid, thanking them for dinner, patting Ashe awkwardly and giving Ingrid a long hug. He turns to Sylvain, worrying at his lip. “Well, I guess I should be going.”

“Me too,” Sylvain decides. “I need to see...room in the palace. Walk you out. See you, Ashe, Ingrid!” He puts his stupid cape on all wrong. Ashe helps him with it. Felix waits at the door, hood up, gloves on, pack ready. He smiles when Sylvain joins him, and they leave the cottage in a chorus of goodbyes. Like Felix is just going on a shopping trip or something instead of rejoining his mercenary band. It makes Sylvain feel sick, like he’s going to lose all of Ashe’s wonderful dinner, which would be a damn shame. 

They find the gate to exit the palace grounds and emerge into brightly lit streets lined with shops, vendors selling hot food from carts, and people like a swarm all around, the night come alive in the time since they arrived. Felix tugs on his hood nervously and drops to walk slightly behind Sylvain. Which is a more convincing act of a lord with his guard, Sylvain supposes, but it probably isn’t necessary. He doubts he’s going to run into anyone he knows. “So is there a particular place you plan to get information?” Sylvain asks over his shoulder. 

Felix grunts in affirmation. “I’ll get there. You have a room in the palace?” 

Sylvain shrugs. “I guess. I call it my room. It’s where I stayed while Dimitri was fighting with my father to make me the margrave. I was there for a couple of months, so now it’s my room and Dimitri doesn’t really care if I drop in unexpectedly. But the palace guards don’t like it when I let myself in so I still have to announce myself to him.”

“I’ll take you around to the front gate,” Felix says firmly and presses closer up behind Sylvain. Lays a hand surreptitiously in Sylvain’s elbow, the one covered by the stupid one-arm cape. He even smiles a little when Sylvain turns his head to look back. “Do my fake job for a few minutes at least.” And then he scowls at the street around them in general. “Damned noisy. And bright. Can’t even see the stars.” 

“There’s not anything great about stars,” Sylvain scoffs before he can remember to shut up. “They just sit there in the sky, not doing anything. So far away. So lonely. At least here you can’t see that they’re lonely.” Felix makes a soft sound that Sylvain doesn’t recognize, but then he curses vividly—which Sylvain does—and falls behind Sylvain just as the voice calls out in greeting. 

“Sylvain! Is that you?” 

Goddess.

Someone warm and soft flings themselves into his arms and his mouth is suddenly filled with sweet-smelling brown hair. Felix will have to fend for himself. 

“—thea,” he coughs, and Dorothea bounces back to the ground, all radiant smiles and elegant flow of shawls. A small movement behind her catches his eye. “Hey Bernie,” he adds, and Bernadetta waves a little with her free hand. The other is clutching an enormous envelope. “Whatcha got?”

Dorothea takes Sylvain’s arm and beams at Bernadetta, who fidgets under their eyes, growing increasingly pink in the cheeks. “It’s her newest book! Bernie was just going to send it to the publisher by mail but I thought a trip to Fhirdiad might be a nice mini vacation.” 

Bernadetta would have preferred a trip to an island full of carnivorous plants, so far as Sylvain can remember, but he smiles and nods along. It’s just like Dorothea to do something like this, whether for Bernadetta or Lysithea or any of their old classmates. “Another book! That’s fantastic! You know I love your work.” 

Bernadetta grins and shakes her head a little. “My secret admirer.” A giggle. “You scared me so much that time.” She considers the package in her arms. “But I’ll send you a copy of this one.” 

“Bernie is so talented,” Dorothea says, voice soft and genuine, and then perks up again. “We just had dinner at the most wonderful restaurant! Are you hungry?”

Sylvain shakes his head and kisses the top of the sheer scarf Dorothea has wrapped around her hair in a bow before dislodging her from his arm. “I just saw Ashe and Ingrid, so I’m good for food. Thank you though.” 

“Ah, my Ingrid,” Dorothea sighs. 

“You say every girl is yours,” Bernadetta mutters. 

“Well, maybe they are. By the way, Sylvain, is the angry fellow behind you meant to be there?”

So Felix didn’t have the chance to disappear. Sylvain doesn’t want to give away his panic by immediately looking back though. Instead, he places a hand on Dorothea’s shoulder to steer her around and prevent her from studying Felix too closely. He really doesn’t like the way Bernadetta is staring, though he recognizes that staring at suspicious strangers is sort of her thing. “Yes, he’s a bit intimidating isn’t he?” He casts a quick glance backward, hoping it seems casual. Felix is there alright, tension written into every part of his body. He’s taken a few steps away and the lights of the buildings around them cast his face into deep shadow beneath the hood. “I finally took everyone’s advice and hired a guard,” Sylvain continues dismissively. “He doesn’t do much except pretend to be my shadow. Now, I hope you don’t mind ladies, but I need to see Dimitri.” 

“Oh? Something important?” Dorothea asks.

“Well, yeah, I want a bath and a bed, I’d say that’s important.” Dorothea rolls her eyes. He watches Bernadetta give Felix a little wave. His hooded shadow returns a terse nod. 

Stalemate, in a game where the characters aren’t made of wood. Sylvain doesn’t want to walk past the girls, since that will risk Felix’s identity being revealed when they get close, and if there’s one person who will spread  _ that _ news all over Fódlan by dawn tomorrow, it’s Dorothea. Going back the way they came would be suspicious, and that’s the way the girls were going anyway, so bad idea. And if he doesn’t come up with a solution, Bernadetta is going to figure it out with all that peering she’s doing. 

“Sir.” A sudden voice, warm breath at his shoulder. Felix keeps his head tucked low as he speaks. “Pardon me if I’m mistaken, but I believe you left your satchel behind. Would you like me to retrieve it?” 

Sylvain feels for the satchel of papers. He really did leave it behind, probably on the cottage floor. “Shit!” 

Felix takes the opportunity to disappear back the way they came. Sylvain can breathe again. He chats with Dorothea and Bernadetta, getting caught up on their operas and their greenhouse exploits, listens to the news about their old classmates, and tries to remember the shops and restaurants they recommend. Eventually he really does have to excuse himself so he’s not dragging Dimitri out of bed to ask for his room, and they move on in separate ways, Bernadetta again promising to send him a copy of her book. Sylvain grins and sticks his hands on his hips, walking leisurely down the street. Felix should be able to avoid them easily on his own. He ducks inside a candy shop and has just finished his purchase when a hand taps on his shoulder. 

“I can’t believe you actually forgot this,” Felix gripes, stomping his way out of the candy shop like the smell of sugar is personally offensive. He holds the satchel to his own chest now. Sylvain is clearly not to be trusted with it anymore. “I actually met Ashe trying to catch up to us...what?”

Sylvain had caught his shoulder as they stepped onto the street and holds a hand to his mouth, pressing something to his lips. 

“I don’t like candy,” Felix mumbles, like if he opens his mouth too far Sylvain will force some sweet poisonous confection inside in a daring new form of assassination. 

“I’m aware,” Sylvain says, grinning. “Just trust me.” Felix rolls his eyes but opens his mouth and accepts the offering. Instantly, his face lights up in a way that is visible even deep in his hood, that might even rival the warm light of the city streets, not that Sylvain is biased or anything. 

“Licorice!” Felix exclaims, and snatches the little white bag from the shop from Sylvain’s outstretched hand while offering the satchel in return. “Trade me.” 

Gladly. How Felix can stomach that bitter flavor is beyond Sylvain’s comprehension. And hopefully the smell of it will keep Sylvain from impulse kissing Felix at the palace gate. 

“Bernadetta was actually out. In town,” Felix comments as Sylvain reluctantly starts walking once more. “That’s nice. She was really trying to get a look at me though.”

Sylvain doesn’t mention that Dorothea had been the one to try to convince him that Felix was dead and it was time to move on, having been nominated for the job by basically everyone who couldn’t bear watching him wait hopefully anymore. He’s not sure how Felix would feel about it. Bernadetta had never said a word on the subject. She’d really grieved when Seteth disappeared though. 

Sylvain is caught between taking the slowest steps ever and actually maintaining a decent pace to prevent really dragging Dimitri out of bed so he can go fall into his own. He tends towards the former. This is his last walk with Felix, and then it’s goodbye. He knows instinctively that Felix will never show up at his door, not after this. They are not star-crossed lovers, meeting in a flurry of kisses every few years. They are just a damned catastrophe, never properly started and never properly finished either. Just a few weeks of dancing around their feelings and then a few days of frantic sex like that could fix it all. 

It hasn’t fixed anything. Sylvain’s heart is a hole in his chest but he knows he’ll be happier for it, in the end. That he had the chance for a proper goodbye, the chance for that kiss he’d held onto for so long. That he can walk down this street and feel Felix just behind him, munching on licorice. That alone is worth losing his heart. 

Too soon, far too soon, the grand main gates of the palace come into view. Sylvain makes sure his rings are ready to be presented for inspection along with his papers, right glove tucked carefully inside the satchel so he won’t lose it, provided he doesn’t leave the satchel behind like an idiot again. “Right.” He clears his throat. “Well, I guess this is my stop.” 

Felix nods. “And I guess I should be on my way.” He taps his foot a few times and then mumbles, “Thank you. For the swords and the clothes and for...for the licorice and all the meals and…” He sighs. “Saving my life. That too.” 

“Nice to know you have your priorities straight.” Sylvain grins and Felix glares at him. If they were still allowing themselves to kiss, he would kiss Felix right now, licorice breath or not. They stop, so close to the gates. 

“Given our luck tonight, Dimitri could walk out those doors any second,” Felix mutters, and stares up at Sylvain. “I think this is probably...where we should separate.” 

Sylvain agrees, though like hell he was going to be the one to suggest it. He rubs the back of his head. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

“I  _ am _ right.” Felix smiles, something soft. “Like always.” 

“Oh, of course,” Sylvain agrees with a laugh, and is totally unprepared for when Felix grabs his shoulders and kisses his cheek, just a brief brush of lips against skin. He lowers himself back down and says, firmly, “That wasn’t a real kiss. I wasn’t breaking any rules.”

Sylvain touches the place where the kiss had landed. It tingles, and the air smells like licorice. “Goddess forbid that Felix Hugo Fraldarius break any rules.”

Felix turns a little pink and straightens his vest. “Well...goodbye.” And that’s it. He turns and walks into the street, into the rush of people and the brightness of a hundred shops, a figure in all blue, blue like a sky filled with stars that can’t be seen through the lights. 

It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. Sylvain will live the rest of his life never having what he wants. 

“Felix!” he calls out, and the figure stops, turns, doesn’t return. 

“Yes?” 

Sylvain flounders. Last words. He can’t let them be a simple goodbye. “Do you wish things had turned out different?” he asks, words tumbling over his tongue. 

Because I would turn back time to change it. I would spend a hundred years and more trying to earn our happy ending. Do you want it too? Do you want me as much as I want you? Not as a few weeks and a tumble in the sheets, but as a forever sort of thing? 

Felix doesn’t reply for a long time, and when he does, Sylvain can barely hear him. “This is the way things turned out, Sylvain,” he says, “And that’s the life we both have to accept.” And then he is going, going, gone, lost among the crowd. Lost to a life that Sylvain doesn’t want to have to accept. 

But it’s the life he has. 

He moves in a daze from there. Introduces himself at the gate, shows his rings and papers. Meets Dimitri—not actually dragged out of sleep for this—in the entrance hall, shows his satchel, explains how he has some things about the trade agreement to discuss and please can he please sleep somewhere please? He can tell Dimitri is concerned, judging by the looks he keeps sharing with Dedue, but Sylvain can’t bring himself to care. Nothing really seems to matter much right now, to be honest. His room is just as he left it that short time ago he was in Fhirdiad. Sylvain kicks off his boots and removes his stupid ornamental armor before collapsing on the bed. 

Well, at least this time he doesn’t have run himself ragged searching for any clue, any sign of where Felix might have disappeared to. This time he knows Felix has his reasons for leaving, and that he isn’t dead. That’s better, right?

So why does it hurt just as much? That’s just unfair. 

This whole damn situation is unfair. Sure, Sylvain hasn’t been the best person ever all his life, but does he deserve the misery that is taking hold of his heart, the hot tears that soak into his pillow, the utter helplessness he feels knowing that his happiness is halfway across the city and there is nothing Sylvain can do to bring him back?

Was he really that awful a teenager he deserves this now? Apparently. 

Maybe he’ll ask the Professor next time he sees her. 

Goddess, couldn’t you have given me a sign when I was twenty and stupid that I was ruining everything already? I might have listened. Or maybe that sign was everyone telling me I was ruining my life and Felix telling me I was stupid.

Okay, so you sent a sign and I didn’t listen. I’ll listen now. Just let him come back. Bring him back to me. Bring him back. Bring him back. Bring him back. 

I love him. 

But sometimes there is no going back. And it’s better to simply accept. 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of a small stone building, decrepit and out of the way. A place no one else will look. That’s how Sylvain knows Felix is there. 

And there he is, sitting in the corner with his sword placed across his knees. If the blade is tilted just right, it acts as a mirror and Felix can see how much he looks like his father. His dead father. As of two hours ago. Sylvain crosses the hut and kneels in front of Felix, hands slowly and gently pulling his fingers away from his sword. There are not many people who can take a sword from Felix, but Sylvain is apparently one of them. He wishes this wasn’t the way he found that out. He sets the sword on the floor and takes Felix’s hands instead. 

Two hours ago, Rodrique took a knife meant for Dimitri, a true shield of the king to the last. And everyone has seemed so caught up in Dimitri’s guilt, in Dimitri coming back to himself, and Sylvain doesn’t  _ not _ care about those things, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of conversation about the one among them who just lost his father. Who just lost his only remaining family member and became the Duke Fraldarius all at once. 

Okay, so there’s one measly uncle technically in charge of the land right now, but everyone knows he doesn’t really matter. Felix is the heir and he is of age. The title is his the moment he claims it.

Sylvain holds Felix’s hands tight and, slowly, like a mountain tumbling apart, Felix slumps forward until his face rests on Sylvain’s shoulder. He’s still in armor and it hasn’t been cleaned. Sylvain will need to fix that, in time. 

“Talk to me, Fe,” he says at last. 

Felix doesn’t talk though, not for a long time. And when he does, it’s a bitter, awful laugh. “He died like a true knight,” he says, and hiccups. His entire body tenses. Felix won’t allow himself to cry. It’s no use telling him it would be alright to. Sylvain is pretty sure Felix used up all his tears on the day he learned that Glenn died, even if he wasn’t around to see it. Sylvain slips his arms around to Felix’s shoulders, fingers kneading through the thick quilt of his overcoat. Even if Felix doesn’t cry, Sylvain needs to be here, just to prove that it would be okay. Sylvain is here. He will always be here. 

“Do you think I’ll be next?” Felix whispers huskily. 

“Hmm?”

Felix lifts his face from Sylvain’s shoulder. It’s gotten all creased from the seams of his shirt. “Will I be next?” 

“Next to what?” 

“Next to die by throwing myself between a blade and Dimitri.” Felix stares at Sylvain, barely blinking, while Sylvain considers all the implications of that statement. Goddess, this family is cursed. 

“Nope,” Sylvain says firmly, and then pulls Felix back into his arms. “I won’t let that happen. Ever.” 

“You sound so confident,” Felix says, mouth muffled by Sylvain’s chest. 

Because I would throw myself between you and a blade a million times over. My side will always hold a scar from where I took that axe. Because you are the one thing I know I can’t lose. I can lose anything else and it will hurt like hell, but the day I lose you, I lose myself. Because I don’t know how to do this without you, Felix.

“I will always protect you,” Sylvain swears, in lieu of letting his whole torrent of words out, and Felix, who would usually scoff or insist he’s always the one saving Sylvain’s ass, just shudders a little and nods. “I’ll protect you,” Sylvain repeats and crushes Felix to him tight. “Always.” 

It isn’t much of a surprise when the eventual footsteps in the doorway belong to Ingrid. Her eyes are red even in the sunset light and her cheeks scrubbed raw by leather gloves. “Felix,” she says softly, and walks until she can slide down to sit at Felix’s side. It’s a little awkward with Felix all crushed into Sylvain and all, but she rests her head on his shoulder all the same. She’s stripped off her metal armor, leaving her tunic and trousers. Her trousers are all dirty, but not from blood. It’s dirt. 

“Felix,” Ingrid says again, softer, “Do you want to come bury your father? We…” Her voice catches. “We have everything ready. I don’t think we can take him back to Fraldarius land, but I suppose if you really want to, I…” 

“You’re not carrying my father’s corpse on the back of your pegasus,” Felix grumbles, and pushes away from Sylvain so he can speak properly. “We bury him here. That’s what’s practical. Glenn didn’t even have a body to bury.” He moves to get up but Ingrid latches onto his arm and drags him back down. “What?”

“Just…” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in. “Just sit with me for a moment. So I can know for certain that you’re still alright?” 

“Of course I’m still alright. Mercedes healed me just fine,” Felix says, but settles anyway. Sylvain repositions to sit on his other side to make a little Fraldarius sandwich. The three of them stare out the broken window panes to Gronder Field beyond. 

Ingrid breaks the silence. “Nothing is allowed to happen to either of you. I won’t allow it.”

“Oh, is that how it works now?” Felix snarks. 

“I will fly up to the Goddess and wrench your soul from her grasp if that’s what it takes to get you two through this war alive,” Ingrid vows, and Sylvain has never heard her so determined. Maybe Ingrid has gotten tired of losing people too. She reaches across and pinches Felix’s ear. “So don’t let it come to that.” 

Felix yanks his ear from her grasp. “Yeah, yeah, I got it.” 

Ingrid fixes Sylvain with a stare. “You too.”

Sylvain raises a helpless hand. “No, it’s fine, I like being alive also.” 

He really does.

They sink back into quiet for a while, until Felix shifts in place and asks, “You said something about a burial?” 

It’s a small funeral. The aftermath of Gronder Field has people busy, like Flayn, still running around to help with injuries. Sylvain also thinks Felix’s presence probably scared some people away, unsure of where his temper would lead things. But Felix is quiet, head down, as Gilbert recites something Saint Seiros once said—Sylvain isn’t paying that much attention—and Annette leads a little hymn that only Ingrid and Mercedes chime in for. Byleth stands a little apart, simply watching. Sylvain can guess Dimitri is nearby, struggling with his demons, if only because Byleth sometimes shifts her position as if she’s keeping someone under watch. Gilbert, Felix, Sylvain, Annette, Mercedes, Ingrid, and somewhat Byleth. Six and a half people are there to bury the great Shield of Faerghus, Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius. After a few flowers picked from the cliffside are delivered by an out-of-breath Ashe to be placed on Rodrigue’s chest, the funeral party disperses to mourn in separate ways for the others lost that day and clean the blood from their hands. Sylvain retreats a bit to give Felix space but also so he can follow him to his tent easily. Felix stands there as Gilbert shovels the dirt over his father’s body and then continues standing there as Gilbert pats the soil down. “It’s best not to mark the place, lest scavengers come to loot the battlefield,” Gilbert tells Felix, and Felix nods jerkily, still staring at where his father disappeared beneath the soil. Gilbert leans in closer and it’s difficult to tell with the sun almost set, but something changes hands. Felix starts for his tent, looking back once and shaking his head before continuing on. Sylvain detaches from the tree he’d been leaning against and follows, meandering through camp and picking up the most recent news as he does so.

The night before the march to Gronder Field, Sylvain had slept with Felix in his bed. He still can’t believe it happened. It hadn’t been slow and it hadn’t been careful, but it had felt like something he should do the moment he saw Felix sitting alone by the pond, staring at the water. Felix holds this entire army as his responsibility in his own strange way, and Sylvain knows how heavy that burden can be, had wanted to do what he could to give them both just a bit of respite. So he had held Felix through the night and it had been perfect. But Felix had been gone before Sylvain woke in the morning and he’s barely talked to Sylvain since, mostly going sort of pink in the cheeks and finding some way to disappear during their march. He sure hadn’t sought Sylvain out last night at camp, not even for a game of cards. Which makes Sylvain worry that maybe he moved too fast and ruined things, but right now, that doesn’t matter. Felix just lost his father and Sylvain will be there for him in whatever capacity Felix needs. If all that is was holding him for a fragile moment in a broken down shed, so be it.

Felix’s tent is pitched a little farther away than the others, as per usual. Sylvain can see his shadow moving, lamp lit inside. Sylvain gives a small cough before entering, but Felix doesn’t care. He doesn’t even look up from where he’s trying to scrub the blood from his hands. Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing and he’s making his hands raw from all the scrubbing but Sylvain understands the urge all too well so he’ll give it another minute before he steps in. He goes and sits on Felix’s cot and removes his boots. His feet ache from digging into stirrups. “I know you’re not okay, Felix, but are you...okay?” 

Felix stops scrubbing, tilts his head in confusion, and turns to face him. “What?”

“Bad things happened,” Sylvain specifies, “Traumatizing to all of us. You’re not okay. But will you be? Okay?” 

Felix’s mouth twitches and he drops his bloody rag to come sit next to Sylvain. He’s taken off most of his armor now and looks much smaller without the bulky furs he usually wears around his neck and shoulders. He grabs something out of his trouser hem and tosses it to Sylvain. “Guess what I got.” 

Sylvain turns the object in his hand around and around. He remembers when they stole this as kids to send a bunch of official-looking letters to Dimitri, who’d been stuck in the capital with a cold. To His Young Highness, all the letters had said, followed by a bunch of nonsense about the games they’d played and the new ones they’d come up with and what treats from the royal kitchen Dimitri should bring to the Fraldarius Castle once he got better. He and Felix had done this for a week, thinking they were eluding Rodrigue completely, when it turns out that the king had already informed Rodrigue of the influx of letters delighting his sick son, so when Rodrigue finally found them tucked away writing, he’d taken back the official Fraldarius ring with only mild scolding and then shown them how to properly seal a letter so it wouldn’t open on the poor falcon mid-voyage. 

“Lord Fraldarius,” Sylvain says with a low whistle, and goes to hand the ring back. Felix makes a face. 

“Just...put it on the ground or something. I don’t want...it.” 

A pretty constant reminder of his father’s death, Sylvain supposes. He sets the ring on an upturned barrel Felix has already crammed all his other stuff onto. “I heard Bernadetta surrendered the moment she saw the Professor. So she’s our captive now, technically. I don’t think she has any guards or chains—Byleth offered her a tent and she hasn’t come out yet.” 

“Good.” Felix doesn’t have anything else to say about that.

“And Claude feels like a right idiot, for once. What was he doing anyway, just throwing his army into battle like that? You know that he’s allied with Ingrid’s second aunt or something, Judith? I guess she gave him a right telling off for it when she arrived so apparently that just runs in the family. But I think that makes us official allies of the Alliance now.” 

“Good.” 

“I tried screaming at Hubert about how he’s being an idiot and should come quietly but I think he just gave me a rude gesture. Either that or he tried to curse me. Probably cursed me. Bastard. Ferdinand’s not happy. He’d hoped more of his classmates would defect.”

“Hubert will defect when he dies,” Felix says, which is grim but probably accurate, and then starts shucking off the rest of his armor. “Ferdinand shouldn’t get his hopes up. We might get the rest to see sense, but Hubert and Edelgard will die together.” He glances over at Sylvain and scratches at some dried blood on his forehead. “Maybe they made a promise like ours.” 

Sylvain doesn’t like that thought for some reason. Of Felix dying out of some weird loyalty to him. No, he doesn’t like it, even if he knows he’s just fine with the opposite. “Um, but that’s it, I think, of what I heard. Goddess, Felix…” He licks his thumb and leans over to wipe that dried blood away. “I thought you liked being clean.” 

“Hmm?” Felix raises a brow and then looks down at his hands scraped raw. “Oh. Yes. Yes, I do. Generally.” 

He doesn’t seem like he’s about to jump up to clean the blood away though. Sylvain sighs. “Wait just a minute.” 

He returns with a bowl of water and a clean cloth. Mercedes always has plenty lying around the medical tents. Felix sits on his cot, stripped down to his trousers, while Sylvain cleans the blood from his skin. His own blood, leftover from where the healing spell left no trace of the actual wound. Other people’s blood, soaked into his sleeves and deposited in a pink stain all up his bare arms. His father’s blood? Had Felix ever held his father after he died, or did he simply look upon the scene and run off to grieve? Sylvain can’t remember. But he cleans Felix’s hands gently, slips a simple white shirt around his shoulders without bothering with buttons, and then guides Felix onto his back. “Bed. Sleeping. We’re on the march again tomorrow.” 

“I don’t need much sleep to follow a road,” Felix mutters, and then snags Sylvain’s arm before he can walk away. “You can...you can stay if you want.” 

Of course Sylvain wants. He  _ wants _ with every bit of himself he has left. He wants this snarky little swordsman in his arms now and forever, but he can’t just say that. Same as Felix won’t explain why now is an okay night for Sylvain to stay, but last night wasn’t. 

Of course, Sylvain never came to Felix’s tent last night. Never sought him out. Maybe that’s the difference. Maybe Felix wants this too, but just doesn’t know how to ask. Doesn’t know how to be the one seeking. 

There had been a plate of cheese and sausage at the side of Sylvain’s cot this morning when he woke, even if Felix was long gone by then. They’re both just fumbling here, trying to communicate in their own separate languages.

Ingrid would probably smile and call them hopeless.

“My tent  _ is _ on the other side of camp,” Sylvain agrees, and rolls into place beside Felix on the cot. It creaks beneath their weight but holds just fine. “It’s so warm down here,” Sylvain says, “I’ll miss it when we’re stuck back up north.”

Felix just hums and falls asleep within moments. 

They don’t stay asleep. Sylvain wakes halfway through the night to Felix frantically trying to clean himself with the leftover water, wild eyed and panting as he splashes water in his face and runs it through his hair, desperate to rid himself of the smell of blood. Sylvain wraps his arms around Felix and holds him still as his panicked breathing peaks and then begins to slow. “I’m fine, I’m fine, let go, I’m fine,” Felix says in a continuous mumble, but in the lamplight of that singular night, they both know that he isn’t. 

It’s a secret, just between the two of them. 

“My father…” Felix whispers at one point, and then blows the lamp out.

***

The next morning, Felix is still in his arms when Sylvain wakes up. Awake, but not stirring. “Felix?” Sylvain whispers, and runs his hand down Felix’s side to rest at his waist. “What can I do? What can I do to make this...better?” 

Felix snorts and hides his face in Sylvain’s chest. Sylvain frowns and his thumb travels in worried little circles on Felix’s hip, rucking up his shirt just a bit. “That feels nice,” Felix mutters after a moment. “Your hand.”

It’s so unusual for Felix to comment on anything like that that Sylvain’s hand pauses in its motion, but he starts rubbing his thumb again immediately after realizing he’d stopped. Felix hums and arches into the touch and Sylvain’s entire chest aches. He can hear other people up and about but damn it, he refuses to leave this cot for nothing less than a catastrophe. 

“I’m hungry,” Felix says, which, okay, fine, Sylvain will also get up for that. Felix has to be exhausted by the events of the night and previous day, more so than most of them, so Sylvain will take his turn to fetch breakfast. 

“I’ll bring food. Will you stay here?” Sylvain pushes Felix’s hair from his face so he can see his expression. The expression is mildly annoyed but his skin is blotchy and there are dark circles under his eyes. 

“I’ll stay.” 

Sylvain comes incredibly close to kissing his forehead but stops himself in time. He rolls off the bed, grabs his boots, and sneaks as quickly as he can out the tent flap and into camp. 

Camp has gotten really big since he last checked. That would be the Alliance troops, he realizes. Already moved in. Probably best they reconcile quickly, given how yesterday went. Idiot Claude. But camp is camp and Sylvain moves towards the center of it to find food. 

It’s foot soldiers Sylvain doesn’t know doling out bowls of simple porridge, which tells him that, somehow, somewhere, he is missing a meeting, because otherwise Dedue or Mercedes or Ashe would be here and the food tastier. But Felix is more important than any meeting right now, and Sylvain doesn’t think he’d be able to contribute much anyway. He takes two bowls and hightails it back through the tents before anyone can spot him and force him to be a responsible general. 

Felix is sitting up on the cot when Sylvain gets back, which he’ll consider a good sign, even if Felix doesn’t look up when the tent flap opens. “Okay, breakfast,” Sylvain announces.

“Mmph.” Felix stares at the bowl of porridge Sylvain shoves in his hands like he’s never seen food before in his life. Sylvain sits at his side once more and looks at where Felix scrubbed his hands a vivid red. He’ll want some cream to go on that, or maybe they can find Flayn before Felix has to hold a sword again. Flayn will heal his hands up and not breathe a word to anyone else. She’s good at keeping secrets, after all, even if they’re all mostly her own.

“You said you were hungry,” Sylvain reminds Felix, and hands over a spoon. Felix nods and digs the spoon into the porridge, but then he seems to lose all motivation.

“Sylvain?” he asks quietly. 

“Yes?” 

“Tell me a story. A lie. Like when we were kids. Like the Bridge of Myrddin.” 

Sylvain raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment. He puts his bowl aside and casts about for inspiration. The only thing he finds is the Fraldarius ring, abandoned on the upturned barrel. He picks it up and blows the dirt off even as Felix winces at the sight of it. A perfect thing to make a story of then. 

“My mother is very beautiful,” he announces, and grins when Felix shoots him a quizzical stare. “Very beautiful. I get all my looks from her, obviously. But she isn’t beautiful for free.” Alright, now he has some idea of where he’s going for this, and the quizzical expression is dropping from Felix’s face to be replaced with contentment. “She has been doing shady business with a man from Sreng for many years, a man who speaks with the snow fairies of that land and learns their secrets.” He continues, loud, before skeptics can interrupt, “Not many know of the snow fairies anymore, since they are mostly gone, but they are real, just as real and fantastic as carnivorous plants or those strange horses with the long necks we saw pictures of that one time, remember? Anyway, the snow fairies have all sorts of magic, and they tell this man how to make creams and perfumes, lipstick and rouge, all imbued with magic.”

Felix smiles a little when Sylvain checks in over there, his eyes gone all shiny the way Sylvain remembers them whenever they’d do this as kids. “Well,” he goes on, “The snow fairies are very happy to do so much business, so sometimes they tell stories to the man about the world long before any of us were born into it, back into the days of the Ten Elites, and he will share those stories with my mother, which is how I know them. You see, this ring?” He holds up the Crest ring. “Is not the original. Your great-great-great-great grandmother lost the original on the battlefield, and it’s still there probably, trampled in the mud. So she had to have a new ring made, right? But this time your great-great...um, how many? Great-great-great-great grandmother, she went to the snow fairies that time, and asked for a ring with just a little bit of magic. She asked for strength, and for bravery, and for a ring that couldn’t be lost again. But she also asked for a few odd things, your great-great-great-great grandmother. She asked for a ring that would help with hair growth, since she was thinning already a little at the time…”

“Sylvain!” And Felix laughs before finally stuffing some porridge in his mouth. Sylvain laughs too, and tries to remember where he was going with this. 

“Well, I’m sorry to report that she was indeed thinning a little, but that ring encourages remarkable hair growth, just wait. And, also being a little bad with directions, she also wished for a ring that would help whoever wore it find their way home, whether that home be a place, or a person, or a purpose.” Sylvain tosses the ring in the air and it catches the light spectacularly. “So when you wear this ring, even if you are lost, know that someday, you are going to find your way home.” He places the ring on the cot between them. Felix eyes it up like it might attack as he spoons in some more breakfast. 

“So it’s a magic fairy ring?” he asks at last. 

“Naturally,” Sylvain says, and grabs the ring before Felix can react, dropping it into the front pocket of Felix’s undone shirt. He drops his voice as well, softer and more serious. “I know it must be so hard, Fe, to have it come to you like this. But if you believe that this ring will always bring you home in the end, then it’s right that you have it to guide you there.” He clears his throat, looks away, and adds, even softer, “I believe that your father knew where he belonged, and who he loved, and what his purpose was. You go in that second category, by the way. Just...keep going Felix. Survive this war, and then see how the world opens up. Because you’ll always end up home.” 

Felix is slow to actually reach inside his pocket and pull out the ring, weighing it in his hand. “That was a pretty good story.” 

“I take donations.”

“I like it when you sleep with me!” Felix blurts out, hand closing around the ring. “I like...I like it.” And he stares at Sylvain with such stubbornness, willing Sylvain to defy him. “I was homesick for you, like you said. But when you’re there, sleeping next to me…” The stubborn expression starts to melt away. “It’s...it’s nice, is all, but if you…Sylvain, what are you…?

Sylvain slowly collapses forward until his forehead rests against Felix’s shoulder. Goddess, he is so red right now, but he’s also very afraid he might try to kiss Felix if Felix keeps talking, and this is not how their first kiss is going to happen. At the same time, he needs to touch him. He needs to be close. “I like it too,” he whispers, and squeezes his eyes shut. An awkward hand pats his back. Once. Twice. There’s a lot that goes unsaid with those awkward pats. Someday Sylvain will be able to interpret them completely.

“Then you should sleep with me tonight,” Felix says, just a hint of bossy, and Sylvain sucks in breath before nodding. 

“Only if you eat your breakfast. You look awful.”

“Thanks for that.” Felix does start eating again though. He lets Sylvain continue to hide against his shoulder and then jostles so they sit side by side and Sylvain leans into him instead. Felix clinks Sylvain’s bowl with his spoon and Sylvain obeys wordlessly, feeling wonderfully warm with his side pressed against Felix while he eats, even if their height difference makes it a little awkward. 

Felix keeps staring at the ring in his hand, closing his fingers around it and then then opening them up to stare again. 

Bring him home, little ring, Sylvain wills it. I know it was only a story, but please, if you’re only going to be good for sealing letters shut, work a little magic for me. Always bring him home. 

If home is me, I won’t complain.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Felix knows that any bar in the city will be a decent place to pick up information on merc jobs and who is operating where. News tends to travel fast. But the first bar just...isn’t right. Neither is the next one. Too fancy. Places where you order fancy drinks with fruit in them. He’s looking for a beer and ale sort of place. 

When he does find a beer and ale sort of place, it’s so noisy that he spins on his heel and walks right back out the door the second he enters. 

He’s gotten too used to the quiet of the north. 

In fact, none of the places he finds feel right. What is he supposed to do? It’s not his fault if bar quality in the capital has declined since the last time he was here. 

He wonders what Sylvain is doing. 

No. No no no no no. He can’t let himself start thinking about Sylvain. Because then he’ll get caught up in memories of kisses and sheets and salty skin beneath his lips, of gentle hands braiding his hair and the scars across his stomach that prove his wound was healed by inexpert white magic. He can reach beneath his vest and feel them through his shirt. He might never have anything but memories for the kisses, for the sex, for the days of frantic policy planning and correcting Sylvain’s dreadful math abilities, of the little black kitten and nights spent sleeping in a tangled mess, but these scars will always be proof that, if nothing else, Sylvain saved his life. 

Felix stops in the street, fists clenching and unclenching. A life debt. He knows they’d traded them back and forth during the war, but this one is different. He’d never nursed Sylvain back to health in his dead mother’s bed. 

He doesn’t want to leave. He can’t imagine returning to a home that doesn’t have Sylvain there, waiting, and he can’t imagine returning to the life of a mercenary, watching the Gautier estate from afar, living as a sword because he’s too afraid to try living as anything else. 

How ridiculous, so many years later, to fear the life of a sword.

Since when did he turn into someone who would live a life controlled by fear? He’s always prided himself on being fearless on the battlefield, of backing down to no one. He took down three demonic beasts on his own using a broken steel sword once, for the Goddess’ sake! He’d been the ace up the sleeve, the wild card, sent in with no batallion to back him up because he wasn’t afraid of fighting alone. 

But right now he is so very afraid of  _ being  _ alone. 

Almost as afraid as he is of…

Of...

Of becoming the Duke Fraldarius. 

When his two fears clash together so hard, how is he supposed to know which one to run from? And what does he do when he’s tired of running? He’s been running and running all over the continent for eight years. Right now, he doesn’t want to run. He wants to hide. 

There’s only one place in the entire city he can think of going. 

It’s downright embarrassing, having to ask one of the guards to fetch Ingrid because he doesn’t carry any identification papers. He stands there awkwardly, trying not to look at the second guard, who leans against his lance and seems bored. He probably could have hopped the wall and surpassed the gate—not like the area of the knights’ cottages needs to be defended with all those armed men and women inside—but if he’s going to ask for Ingrid’s help, he should probably do this right. 

Finally, she comes, accompanying the guard, who returns to his post while Ingrid stands, wrapped in a robe with her hat jammed on over her tousled hair. 

“What is it Felix?” she asks, stepping over the threshold onto the street, toe to toe so they don’t have to talk loudly. “Weren’t you going to find information on your mercenary group?” 

Felix bites at his lip. “I...I…” He doesn’t want to meet her gaze. He casts his eyes around to the sky, the bored guard, the wall, the street. He settles on a decorative potted bush beside the gate. The leaves are unusually pale. “I’m not sure that I want...to do that anymore,” he finally mumbles. 

Ingrid nods and huffs on her fingers. Patient. She might have yelled at them a lot, but she was always also so patient, considering all the shit she put up with. “Do you know what you want to do?” she prompts eventually when he doesn’t offer anything more. 

Felix doesn’t know how to say it. He looks at her, sees the concern in her eyes, and that’s enough. He doesn’t know how to handle this anymore. “I want...I want…”

I want Sylvain. 

The words aren’t said out loud, but he thinks Ingrid hears them anyway. “You two,” she sighs, and takes Felix’s hand to drag him through the gates. “I’ve never seen so many tears shed over broken hearts.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of Enbarr. Looking over the city, he can only hope Edelgard has evacuated her citizens somewhere safe. Felix doesn’t want anyone unnecessary to get caught in the fighting. He’s not sure of himself anymore, whether he can tell soldiers from civilians. 

Someone approaches from behind and puts their hand in the small of Felix’s back. It’s Sylvain. Felix can tell by his footsteps and the fact no one else would dare touch Felix so casually. Night after night of sharing a bed can change a lot of things. “Dimitri is going to give the order any minute now,” Sylvain tells him gently. “The Professor sent me to find you.” 

Lately, Felix has needed to get away before the battle begins. He’s not sure why. He just doesn’t feel like he can breathe until he’s away from the horses and the wagons and the smell of sweat and leather. 

It’s too loud, maybe that’s it. He can’t get his thoughts in order. 

He will kill today, but he’ll do it to save his friends. That’s what he needs to think of. That’s what he needs to get away to remember. 

“It’ll be over after this,” Sylvain adds, the hand on Felix’s back smoothing around to his side, pulling them closer, a move he performs every night to draw them together beneath blankets. Felix sighs and tips his head against Sylvain’s shoulder. The armor cools his aching head. 

“Yeah.” 

When did it get so easy to let Sylvain in like this? It was only a few weeks ago he was telling himself to stay away. Because he’s a sword. Because he shouldn’t love. Because it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. But Sylvain’s hands are the only thing that keep him grounded sometimes, his smile the only way Felix remembers there is something beyond this war. Maybe a future where they can be free of all of this, run off somewhere with no Kingdom or Empire or Church and just be Felix and Sylvain, instead of Fraldarius and Gautier. Felix and Sylvain, with no heirs, no Crests, just happy and in love.

That word hurts so much, even if just in a fantasy. Felix wishes his imagination could stop painting such wonderful futures. Having to smash them apart before he gets too caught up in a happily ever after is now a daily chore. That’s probably the real reason he can’t get his thoughts in order.

Saints, he can’t do this now. Felix pulls out of Sylvain’s grip. Or, at least he tries. Sylvain’s fingers catch at his clothing and spin him back around so he’s pressed against Sylvain’s chest. Sylvain stares down at him, brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Felix mumbles in way of reply, and isn’t surprised when Sylvain’s finger curls beneath his chin and lifts it up so their eyes meet. 

“What’s wrong?” Sylvain repeats. “Do you not feel well?”

Felix’s chest is way too tight. “What do we do once this is all over?” he asks, trying not to sound plaintive, and Sylvain blinks his big stupid doe eyes, thumb stroking across Felix’s jaw. “Sylvain?” 

“Hm?” Sylvain seems really distracted. Not good, before a battle.

“What do we do once this is all over?” Felix repeats. “How do things...become normal again?” 

Sylvain makes one of those ‘I don’t know’ noises. “I’m going to focus on getting out of this thing alive before thinking about the future.” 

“I’ll keep you alive,” Felix swears, because that’s what they do, and Sylvain chuckles and nods. His other hand lands back on Felix’s waist. 

“I know you will.” He lifts a brow. “But, in case you don’t…” 

“I  _ will _ !” 

“I know you will. But—Goddess—I’d hate to die before doing this…”

And Sylvain leans down, tipping Felix’s chin just a little bit higher. “Is this okay?” he asks, his nose bumping against Felix’s, but Felix is frozen. Frozen, because Sylvain’s hands are so gentle and his eyes are so sweet and there’s nothing Felix wants more but to let Sylvain close the rest of that distance but he can’t seem to get his muscles to move to nod or say yes or do anything at all because …

Really, the idea that Sylvain doesn’t feel the same way is ridiculous now. He’s not completely stupid when it comes to someone sleeping in your bed, and Ingrid has given them enough pointed looks just in case he hadn’t gotten it himself. They’ve been moving towards this for a while now, maybe ever since they met each other on the road back to the Garreg Mach. Maybe even further back.

But Felix is still frozen. There is something terrifying about reality. 

Sylvain stays where he is a moment longer, and then leans away, hurt flashing across his face. “I...aha...was being stupid. I should get back…” 

And now he’s screwed it all up. Reality crashes down around him, and Felix regains use of his tongue. “Yeah. Me too.” He manages to unstick his feet. Had he just...had he just missed his first kiss? 

Had he just missed his first kiss with Sylvain? 

Oh, he fucked that up so badly, and there’s no coming back from it. 

The walk back to camp is awful. Sylvain’s shoulders are slumped and Felix follows at a drag, afraid to see Sylvain’s expression. Byleth gives them a confused look when they join her, but Felix is pointed down his direction and Sylvain given the order to lead the cavalry unit. Felix watches the sky in the reflection of his blade as he perches on a brick wall surrounding an abandoned house atop a hill, and from here, he can see the soldiers in the city preparing for the assault, and can also see the Kingdom army preparing to attack, can see their own cavalry units, knows Sylvain is there. What is he doing all the way over here when Sylvain is there? How does Felix protect him from  _ here _ ? 

How do things become normal again? What a stupid question. Felix doesn’t want them normal. He wants to leave Fódlan with Sylvain strung at the end of his hand and keep them away forever, just them, just two normal people living normal lives, in Almyra maybe, or Brigid. He doesn’t want Sylvain to go back to Gautier territory. And Felix doesn’t want to be the Duke Fraldarius. 

He wants so much more happiness than he deserves, but Sylvain deserves all the happiness there is in this stupid world, so if Sylvain could be happy with him, then maybe...

Felix groans and sits on the stone wall, holding his face in one hand. This is a mess. He needs his head to be clearer than this if he’s going to survive. If he’s going to make sure they all make it out of here alive. Annette. Ashe. Mercedes, Dedue. Flayn. Ingrid. Dimitri. Sylvain. And now all these other old classmates too he can't even remember the names of! He needs to keep them all alive.

“Felix?”

He sits bolt upright. It’s only Sylvain of course, looking more sheepish than Felix may have ever seen him. Felix hadn’t heard his footsteps. That’s terrible practice, right before battle. Apparently Sylvain thinks this is terrible too, because he won’t stop fiddling with his armor. “Aha...so...that was awkward, but I wanted to make sure we were…” Sylvain stops a good way from the wall and rocks back on his heels, studying the sky studiously. “...okay.” 

Felix just studies him from the safety of his wall. Sylvain is commander of the cavalry, but he came to see Felix instead. It’s a simple thing, but Felix has always treasured the simple things when it comes to Sylvain. A spar. A real smile. A shared bed. A story. “Are we okay?” he asks, drawing one leg up to rest his chin upon his knee. 

Sylvain cocks his head to the side. “Well...are we? I mean...I’m sorry I tried to...you know...kiss you. I thought...I thought...I don’t know what I thought. But I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that and I don’t want to lose you because of it.” 

Felix stares at him while Sylvain fidgets, and then says, with disbelief, “You really are an idiot.” 

“Yeah!” Sylvain says with anguish. “I know! So can we just forget the whole thing happened, please?”

Felix sighs, and then beckons Sylvain closer. “I’m not going to kick you or anything!” he gripes when Sylvain hesitates. He lowers both legs back down and keeps luring Sylvain closer with crooks of his finger until he can finally reach and take Sylvain by the ears, yanking him so he stands between Felix’s legs, top of his head reaching up to just above Felix’s chin. 

“You won’t lose me,” Felix promises. “Because I…” This is hard to say with Sylvain staring at him with those big eyes of his. Sylvain grunts when Felix squishes his face into his chest, but it leaves Felix free to rest his chin atop Sylvain’s head. His hair smells awful. Like the hair of a soldier who hasn’t washed it in weeks. Or, exactly what it is, he concedes. Felix loves it anyway. “When we come out of this alive, come try to kiss me again,” he orders. 

Sylvain’s hands slowly come up to rest on Felix’s waist. “Wait, really?” He tries to raise his head but Felix keeps him trapped. This is far, far easier if he can’t actually see Sylvain’s face. 

“Yes, really, or why would I be saying it?” There’s an insult needed here, lest Sylvain think he’s gone soft or something. He has, completely, but if Sylvain knows just how soft Felix is for him, he’ll never hear the end of it. “Dumbass.” 

Sylvain’s hands knead at Felix’s waist. Nice. Intimate. The sort of thing that Felix never imagined himself enjoying so much. “Let me get this all straight. After the battle, I come and find you, and I can kiss you?” 

Felix hums agreement. 

Sylvain is silent for a good long moment. And then he says, “Felix, this isn’t...a tryst for me. Not with you. For you it’s the sort of thing that I want…” 

“Yes?” Felix prompts, stomach jumping. 

Sylvain wrestles free of Felix’s grip and throws his head back to stare him straight in the eye. “Forever! This is a forever sort of thing for me! Do you still want me to come kiss you?” 

Felix feels so light he could float off this wall and into the clouds. He nods, lips pursed tight. 

“Really?” 

“Would I be nodding if I didn’t actually mean it?”

“Good point!” Sylvain beams at him and then takes one of his gloved hands, giving it a tight squeeze as he begins to back away. “It’s going to be crazy after the battle, but I’ll find you, okay?” He drops Felix’s hand and hops a few steps down the road. “I don’t know what we’ll have to do with Edelgard or Dimitri or any of this, but I’ll find you!”

Another few hops, and then his smile turns more wistful. 

“Will you wait for me?” 

Felix could be among the stars at this point. “I’ll wait for you. Now go, before Dimitri starts without you!” 

Sylvain laughs, so unrestrained and unrefined, like the whinnies of the horses he so likes riding about, and dashes off down the road, a blur of grey and red until he turns a corner and is lost to view. 

“I’ll wait for you,” Felix repeats in a whisper, and tries to tether himself down to earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A point to each correct character cameo you guess right, y/y?   
> Honestly, Sylvain's supports with Bernie might be my 2nd fave for him. It's so sweet. She might consider burning him alive but it's still cute.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> User nindendont ripped my heart out by insisting I listen to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3R65LpLB2s) because it works perfectly for this fic and it absolutely does like scarily so, so if you need some mood music or just want to feel feelings with me, I suggest giving a listen~  
> There have been so many nice comments and usually I try to reply to comments but I honestly don't know what to say!! Thank you seems really insufficient. I was feeling so down about this fic and all of a sudden there's just this outpouring of love and I adore you all, I really do! You make me look forward to proofreading and that really says something, I can swear to you on that~
> 
> Okay but really: the next couple of chapters are ROUGH. I know they are. But I tagged this as 'angst with a happy ending' because that happy ending is coming! Just...some personal reassurement from me to you. I like happy endings.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

He wakes before the sun rises, but this time it’s not his internal clock. It’s Ashe, trying to get out the bedroom door as quietly as he can. He winces and mouths ‘sorry’ when Felix sits up from the cocoon of blankets that was his bed beneath the window last night. Felix forces a smile. He’s happy to be awake. His dreams had made him restless. 

Ashe makes coffee enough for two and they sit across from each other at the table, Ashe all bulked up with his armor and the layers upon layers beneath it to keep him warm when he takes his wyvern out on patrol in a few minutes. Felix feels all cried out even though he hadn’t cried last night and doesn’t think he’s going to cry now. It’s that weird emptiness. Everything worthwhile in him is gone. It doesn’t help that the sun hasn’t risen. He feels trapped by this city and it’s fake light skies. Ashe finishes his drink quickly and waves goodbye before sneaking out the door. Is that really necessary? If Felix remembers correctly, Ingrid sleeps like a log. Or maybe even a rock. It had been the source of much delight between him and...him and Sylvain, when they were kids. Dimitri had been a bit too shy or maybe just a bit too attached to all his limbs to join in on bouncing on her bed singing songs to wake her up in the morning, but Dimitri really needn’t have worried. It still took several minutes of bouncing and singing to even garner a reaction, and most times it was just a groan and rolling over with a pillow over her ears. 

Felix smiles into his coffee. For a few years there, he really had a charmed childhood, didn’t he? Maybe that’s the happiness he deserves, the happiness he has to hold onto. A pity that ten-year-old him didn’t realize these were the best years of his life, but Felix can’t really blame his kid-self for being a bit of an idiot, taking things for granted. 

He’s long finished his coffee and sits with hands wrapped around the mug by the time Ingrid stumbles into the kitchen. She moves on automatic, opting for tea instead of coffee and collapsing into her seat with hair mussed up something awful. The sun has begun to rise and it highlights the gold of her hair, even messy, like some sort of treasure. Finally, after downing half her mug of tea, she meets Felix’s eye and smiles. He attempts a smile back. Ingrid’s smile fades—apparently it was a bad attempt on his part—and reaches out to take his wrist. “It’ll be alright.” 

No it won’t. Felix fucked things up forever in a frenzied decision eight years ago and there’s no unfucking that. There’s no getting those years back. 

Ingrid probably sees his thoughts on his face, but she just squeezes his wrist and stands. “Do you want breakfast? I’m making eggs.” 

He’s not hungry. She makes him eat his eggs anyway. After the eggs have been consumed to her satisfaction, Ingrid tents her fingers and rests her chin. “I won’t ask if you don’t want to tell me.” 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell her, per se. It’s that he doesn’t know where to start. These feelings, it’s embarrassing. 

“What do I say?” he asks, too tired to come up with a solution on his own. 

“Well, how about the stuff that Sylvain’s letter didn’t?”

Felix continues poking his plate with the fork. “What did the letter say?” 

“That you were alive, that you’ve been working as a mercenary, that you were staying with him for a few weeks, and you two would be coming to town in three days so could you come to dinner.” She sighs. “There’s a lot of gaps in my knowledge, obviously.” 

Felix frowns at his empty plate. “I don’t know...what you actually need to know.” 

“Here, help me with the dishes, otherwise Ashe will do them when he gets home. There’s the towel, yes, there. Good. Ashe does housework as a hobby these days. I keep telling him to ask Dimitri for access to the castle library, but he’s still worried about crossing boundaries…” Her shoulders slump a little. Felix decides not to comment as he watches her rinse a fork with a soapy sponge. She doesn’t stay slumped for long and hands him the fork to dry. “So why did you decide to go visit Sylvain after so long?” 

Felix laughs, a harsh sound that hurts his throat. “It wasn’t by choice.” 

In the end, there isn’t much he actually tells her. Of course he tells her about Sylvain saving his life and about being snowed in. About the fact Sylvain can’t do math for shit and that’s what the satchel was about. And about deciding to travel to Fhirdiad so Sylvain could visit Dimitri and Felix could find information on where Leonie and his crew have ended up. He doesn’t tell her about gentle fingers combing all the tangles from his hair and the way Sylvain slept with an arm across him to keep him in bed and then just because neither of them wanted him to leave. Doesn’t tell her about the quiet words or the shouting match. Doesn’t tell her about that first kiss he’d finally been able to give. 

He knows she already knows why he’s sitting here now, instead of booking it out of the city to find his crew. Ingrid has always been able to read him well too, and there’s no other possibility it could be. 

“Why do you want to know all this now?” Felix asks, once he’s finished and they’re sitting there awkwardly, hands still a little soapy from doing dishes. “You only wanted to know I had a reason for leaving yesterday. Why does this matter now?” 

Ingrid sighs—she does that a lot around him—and shrugs one shoulder. “Because I thought that if you were going to simply...leave again, then I was better off not knowing. If you need my help though, or are sleeping in my house at least, I think I should probably be informed. Keeping track of where you and Sylvain were with each other always gave me a headache.” 

Huh? “What does that mean?” 

Ingrid raises her eyebrows. “Felix.”

“What?”

“ _ Felix. _ ” 

He thinks he knows what she’s getting at, but hell if he’ll admit to it. 

Ingrid sends him an exasperated look. “Anyway, I just want to have a plan here.” She taps her fingers in rhythm on the table. “Do you have some...semblance of a plan, or is it the usual Felix way of doing stuff the moment you feel like it?” 

Felix turns his head to the side to avoid her gaze and the blue ribbon brushes along the exposed skin of his neck. He raises a hand to rub the material between his fingers. Sylvain’s hands had always been so gentle. 

“Hold on a moment.” Ingrid stands and walks around to him, and then her hands, not quite as gentle but still careful, fix his braids and tighten the ribbon. “This is why short hair is easiest.” She turns his head to meet her eyes and smiles, sadness dripping from that smile like honey. “You look so much like Glenn sometimes. Or maybe I’m just forgetting what he looked like.” Her hands slide from his face down to his shoulders. “So what do you do now?”

“Whatever I feel like at the moment, I guess.” He grins at her, best as he can. She pushes a hand back through her hair and groans. 

“Alright. Well, I have some time before I need to be at the stables. At least let me follow and do damage control.”

***

Ingrid refuses to help him break into the palace. 

“I just need to talk to Sylvain, for just a moment!” he protests, to which she replies is still breaking into the palace and she won’t be bailing him out of prison when he gets caught. 

Damn. The passages between the barracks and the palace were his most direct access. But only registered guards are allowed through and he has no chance without Ingrid’s help. He won’t drag Ashe into a life of crime.

“You don’t even know what you’ll say to him.” Ingrid sighs, all decked out in her uniform while Felix tries to spy into a distant palace window. It’s hard with all these stupid security walls. Impossible to find a good vantage point. And he’d be spotted scaling these. Supposes that’s the point. “You need to know what you have to say,” Ingrid continues. “You  _ know _ that. I know you know that. And now I do actually have to be at the stables within a half hour. The training grounds are right there too. I could set you up with someone to spar with?”

Saints, he’s about to turn down a sparring session for the first time in his life.

“I’ll pass. I need to...I need to do something else.” 

Like forge papers. It’s not difficult. And if he can’t get through the guard passage, then there’s no option but the main gates. He steals some paper from Ingrid’s drawer while she’s on duty—sorry Ingrid—and copies Sylvain’s handwriting the best he can. Why didn’t Sylvain just write up papers for him before they came to the capital? Ah yes. Carrying false papers is illegal and he refused to go by Fraldarius. That was the reason. And they didn’t think Felix would be trying to get into the palace either. He’d always be with Sylvain anyway, who could get him anywhere. But now Felix will risk his forged papers with a fake name, marked with a Gautier Crest he carves out of a potato in about ten minutes. He hopes Ingrid doesn’t miss the wax. It’s good enough, Felix decides as he lets the wax cool. They may be palace guards, cream of the crop, but still only guards. Felix knows that if he carries himself the right way and rolls his eyes at the right time about how ridiculous nobles can be, asking even their personal guards to run all sorts of stupid errands, he’ll be able to slip through the main gates. No one really expects assassins to stroll through the main gates using a potato Crest seal. The real danger is if he accidentally gets close to Dimitri. Then not only will security be tighter, he’ll risk running into people he knows...

Nope. He just needs to find Sylvain’s room, break in, and wait for Sylvain to return because then...then…

He doesn’t know what he needs to say. Maybe the words will come to him on the spot. Mostly he just needs to see Sylvain again. Like water. Like food. He needs to see Sylvain again or he’ll starve. 

Maybe he can starve for just one more night. Felix wanders to the gate that leads to the city outside and considers strolling down the street to go break into the palace and his whole stomach just flips at the idea. He stashes the fake papers deep in his belt pouch and turns away.

The training ground is easy to find if he just listens for the thwack of wood on wood, and no one questions the sudden presence of a new face. Felix tosses his cloak and sword belt over a bench and takes a few moments to find a training sword with a good balance. There are plenty of opponents, ranging from fresh-faced enthusiasts to more battle hardened veterans who probably fought alongside Felix in the war. It’s so refreshing to spar again, to let himself become a sword once more. This was what he was born to be, raised to be, trained to be. A weapon. A second son. Fight, Felix, fight. Fight to make Glenn proud. Fight to protect everyone. 

Fight and fight and fight and never expect praise, never expect a reward, because a sword is a sword and killing is just what it’s expected to do. 

Be a sword, Felix tells himself. Thwack. He defeats his opponent. 

Be a sword. Thwack thwack. Another opponent defeated.

Be a sword. Thwack thwack thwack. A little more difficult, a more skilled soldier, but still defeated.

Be a sword. Thwack. Thwack. He is untouchable, scarcely out of breath. 

Swords don’t feel pain or loss or guilt. They don’t kiss. Their hearts don’t ache. They don’t miss laughter or ginger cookies or soapy water or tangled sheets. 

Swords don’t love. 

He forged himself into a sword so he wouldn’t have to love. So he wouldn’t have to feel that paralyzing grief in the wake of Glenn’s death.

So why didn’t it work?

Knights and soldiers are asking where he is from, who he works for, but Felix doesn’t have time for it. He brushes off the questions and leaves the training grounds, only just remembering to grab his cape and his own precious swords. He takes one out as he wanders back towards Ashe and Ingrid’s cabin. This is a sword. Made of metal. It truly does not think, does not feel, does whatever he tells of it. But Felix has never simply obeyed directions, never followed the parry with the thrust and the follow through. It had been the source of never ending conflict between him and his father. Swords don’t argue. During the war, Byleth let him go and fight on his own, maybe not because he’s a weapon, but because she trusted him, trusted what he chose to do. Swords don’t have judgement. As a mercenary, he had freedom, anonymity. Swords can’t be free. And with Sylvain, with Ingrid, with Ashe, with Ms. Ada, with his father and mother and Glenn and everyone…

Swords don’t love. 

So maybe Felix has never been a sword. He never managed to make himself into one at all.

He stares at the weapon in his hand and it suddenly feels so foreign. This isn’t me. It never has been. In a moment, I will sheath this sword, and it will hang silently at my side. I will walk on, because I may have been raised to wield a weapon, but the only one so stubbornly insisting it’s all I can be is...me, of course, because I’m stubborn. 

Swords can’t be stubborn. 

It’s a stupid revelation to have, and not one he can announce to anyone in particular. “I am not a sword.” Maybe Sylvain would get it, because he knows how to listen, but no one else. Felix sheaths his sword and walks with purposeful tread back to the cottage. 

He is not a sword. He is Felix Hugo Fraldarius, and he has never been made of metal. If he wounds, it’s because he chooses to wound, not because he is composed of sharp edges.

Of course, if he is not a sword, he needs to accept that he’s a man. Fallible. Weak. Everything Felix ever looked down upon. But maybe that’s alright because there are people in this world who look at him in all his fucked up glory and still love him for it.

It’s only midday, but he needs to plan. He needs to know what to say. He can’t just lie his way into the palace and ambush Sylvain in a corridor. 

What does he want? He wants forever. But he won’t be getting that. There will be no running off to see the world, not for them. They were born into certain chains and Felix is just proof there’s no escape, because even if you try to leave, your heart will get the best of you anyway. 

Ugh. 

Felix paces laps around the knights’ quarters until dusk, weighing options, until his stomach reminds him that Ashe is cooking, which is a good excuse to stop worrying for the moment at least. Both Ashe and Ingrid are home when he slips in the front door, both looking tired but fulfilled. Felix can’t imagine how spending all day up in the sky on one of those death creatures can make someone so content, but oh well. Ingrid is setting up a more comfortable bed of folded blankets beneath the window while Ashe cooks. She looks up and smiles, dirt smeared on her cheek. Perhaps from caring for her filly. 

The meal is simpler this time, no forewarning of the guest who would overstay his welcome. But the potatoes are soft and coated with real butter, and the bread is just how Dedue used to make it back at the Academy, one of their shared recipes, no doubt. Ingrid slices up some apples for dessert and she and Ashe discuss the upcoming schedule change that will take effect in a few weeks. It’s lovely and small and homey and everything Felix wishes he could have. 

He did have. With Milo and Ms. Ada and Linus. He walked away from that. 

They play cards after dinner and Ashe thoroughly trashes the competition. He just laughs and rubs the back of his head when Ingrid demands to know his secret. A mind that sees the big picture, Felix thinks. Maybe that’s the benefit of riding a wyvern above the battlefield. Or charging a horse straight through it, although Sylvain was a master at board games long before they ever went to war. 

Felix loses every single game of cards. 

Basic chores are completed, he sees Ingrid peck Ashe on the cheek for the first time, and the bed on the floor really is more comfortable now with the blankets Ingrid added. Ashe offers up a spare nightshirt, and Felix can tell how much Ashe has bulked up in the arm and chest area when he stands alone in the main room, carefully folding his own clothes for tomorrow. Before, he always thought Ashe as smaller, weedier, but when they actually stand face to face and Ashe doesn’t hunch his shoulders, they might be the exact same height, and he’s definitely put on muscle. Everyone has changed, moved on. As it should be.

And he is not a sword. Second son or not, he knows that this is not the future his father wished for him. As shitty a dad as he could be sometimes, he never would have wanted Felix to live life as a weapon. 

And Glenn would have hated it. Felix can almost feel Glenn’s hands inspecting his limbs.  _ A sword? A sword? Hmm, but you don’t seem to be made of iron. Or steel. Or even silver. You’d be a fine sword if you were made of silver, but all I’m finding is flesh. And you still hate it when I poke this spot in your side. Ahh, that always made you laugh when you were a baby, and then you would get so mad at me when you were a little older. I don’t think swords have secret ticklish spots either. So I think it’s really best for everyone if you stop pretending, Felix.  _

What he wouldn’t give to have Glenn beside him now. Or even his father. They could stand there in mutual, uncomfortable silence and maybe Felix would have a chance to say ‘I don’t actually hate you’ and his father could say ‘I am actually proud’ and a lot of his family angst could be solved with two sentences. 

He doesn’t think his father would actually be proud of him now. Old man always had such high expectations. But he’s not feeling so proud of himself either. Hasn’t ever, really, since the moment he escaped Enbarr. He doesn’t finish a job and feel fulfilled the way Ashe and Ingrid looked, knowing they did something good today. Not that he doesn’t do good work as a merc but it’s...not the same. 

Felix groans and buries his face beneath the pillow. He is not a sword. He is not a sword. 

Being a sword was a lot easier though. A sword would be asleep by now. But no matter how he tries to force himself into sleep, it eludes him for hours before finally sneaking up on him once he’s sat up against the wall, determined to simply stay up at this point. The exhaustion hits him like a hammer to the chest and he falls into a restless sleep, curled into the blankets with the ghosts of Glenn and his father dancing in his head. 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of an ending. Dimitri is bleeding from one shoulder and Mercedes looks haggard from all the healing she’s done these past few hours. Felix ducks beneath one of her shoulders to help her sit down. She smiles weakly at him and pats his cheek. This time, Felix allows it. 

There’s Sylvain. At Dimitri’s side, right with Professor Byleth. He turns to meet Felix with a weary grin. He has blood smeared all down one cheek. Felix aches to run to him, to clean his face with the same gentleness Sylvain has always used for him, but his attention is turned when Dimitri clears his throat and swishes that damn big cape of his. Byleth’s eyes are like lanterns in the dusk, always hovering near. Saints, Felix wishes they would just get it married and done with. 

Something is expected of him here. Oh. Felix bobs his head. It’s as much a bow Dimitri is going to get, at least for now. “Your Majesty,” he spits out. 

Dimitri looks amused, at least, when Felix straightens. “My Duke Fraldarius,” he says in his grumbly low voice, still bleeding from multiple wounds and using his lance to stand, and yes, this is a king Felix could serve.

But not, he realizes in one awful, soul-stealing moment, as the Duke Fraldarius.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

Felix slips out of the cottage before even Ashe has risen. He folds every blanket carefully and leaves them in a neat pile on the floor. He’s not planning on coming back, or at least he’s not planning on stealing the space beneath their kitchen window for another night. He would stay to thank them personally, but Ingrid would highly object to what he’s about to do.

The guards at the front gates are just as tired as he’d hoped for. They ask for his papers and wave him through without really checking any of the details on the forgeries when he answers their basic questions confidently enough. How sloppy. And then Felix is inside the palace. It hasn’t changed much. Still the same pillars and marble flooring. Same high windows that were impossible to look out of. Very pretty, but it had always felt like a very fancy birdcage to Felix. He preferred the rough stone floor of the Fraldarius Castle and the way you could perch up on the windows and see forever if you got up high enough. There was a ruggedness to his childhood home he’d always adored, a pride to his scraped knees and the baby tooth he’d knocked out tripping up the stairs. 

Now, in the bright lights of the castle, he tugs his hood up, face in shadow. It may look suspicious, but it’s worth the risk. If anyone else he knows sees him, it’s over. He just needs to find Sylvain. Finally. His years as a squire finally coming in handy. He knows this place.

There’s a stairwell back here that’s used only by the servants as they empty chamber pots and the like. There’s still a few men and women travelling up and down the steps, but for the most part, he’s avoided the rush. The royal bedrooms are on the fifth floor, so the view is good but assassins would still have to travel down through the sixth floor for an attempt on the king’s life. There’s a row of bedrooms down the entire hall reserved for distinguished guests. Felix had stayed in one with his father one time, and in a room of his own when he was first brought to the capital to meet Dimitri. 

“You look like your brother,” the old king had said to Felix, and Felix had decided then that this was a good king to follow. He loved it the most when people compared him to Glenn. He’d stopped hiding behind Glenn at that point, actually come out and bowed to the king the way his father had told him too. King Lambert had a kind face with an easy smile. “Glenn is a royal knight!” he’d declared proudly, and King Lambert had answered, “He is a wonderful knight, too. You must be proud.” Glenn had probably gone pink at this—he went pink all over when embarrassed—but young Felix had just nodded and smirked.

Felix exits the stairwell on the fifth floor and stalks down the hallway, wondering how he’s supposed to know which room is Sylvain’s. 

Dimitri had hid behind his father’s legs the whole time, until Felix finally coaxed him out with hide and seek. Make friends with the prince, his father had told him. He’ll be staying with us this summer. Which was good, because Dimitri didn’t even know how to play hide and seek right. He counted inside his head, instead of out loud. But Felix was nice, like his father had also told him, and didn’t say anything, just found some drapes a few rooms over and curled up behind them while Dimitri counted and their fathers laughed and chatted over Kingdom matters. 

At least it’s easy to tell which room is reserved for royalty. Foolish, Felix thinks. The extra decoration around the frame would make it too easy for an assassin to strike. He sneaks past that room as quickly as possible. The king’s chambers. The queen’s. Just how often did Byleth walk through those doors? Well, it isn’t his place to guess. But the issue of a royal heir would become one soon, wouldn’t it? He hadn’t really cared running around as a mercenary and hadn’t bothered to ask Sylvain. But surely their royal couple must have talked about it at least. Felix isn’t prepared for a war of inheritance. Isn’t prepared for the fact he’ll be fighting on Dimitri’s side. He never actually hated him, after all, no matter what other people thought. 

Dimitri had come back with them that summer. He was so quiet, with locks of hair that flopped in his eyes. Glenn was assigned as his personal guard, but they all knew the prince would be safe with the Duke Fraldarius, who would give his life before allowing harm to come to Dimitri. Just a week or two later, Felix had met Ingrid for the first time as well. Glenn’s fiance, though he’d been too young to really understand what that meant. Another boy might join them, later on in the summer, but Glenn hadn’t explained any further than that. Hadn’t gotten into how Margrave Gautier was desperate to form alliances with the stronger families and more prominent Crests of the Kingdom. That understanding would come in the following years. But the real point was that there would be four people to play hide and seek! Or throw a ball around! Or play blind man’s bluff! The world got so much exciting with four people to play. 

Saints, those hours of play had been everything to him as a child. It’s sad to think how the four of them have spread themselves across the continent. At least Ingrid is in the capital, but how often does she get to speak with Dimitri, really speak to him the way they used to? Sylvain has banished himself up north, and Felix might as well be dead to them, or at least he was until a few weeks ago. That’s not what childhood friends are supposed to do. They’re supposed to stay close for all their lives, aren’t they? Or is that just another bullshit idea touted by stories about Loog and other chivalrous knights? Honor and glory and friendship. All ridiculous. 

He slips behind a pillar when a door opens and sneaks a look at the person who leaves their room and frowns when he recognizes Goneril. What is she doing here? Is there some conference Sylvain didn’t tell him about? 

After Hilda has disappeared down the grander, more formal staircase, Felix slips out from behind the pillar and continues creeping along the corridor. Sylvain. Sylvain, Sylvain, Sylvain, where are you? 

A doorway far at the other end—the end he’s already passed—opens up with a click and Felix swears softly as he turns and sneaks as quickly as he can back down that way. He brightens up at the sight of red hair. That was actually fairly easy. He doesn’t hasten his step to actually catch Sylvain, though. He’s not prepared for it and this is not a conversation he wants to have hurried in a hallway. He slips a hand in the door before it can close completely and lets himself inside. See? This is why Sylvain needs a guard, if it’s this simple to steal into his rooms. 

Well, it seems like a pretty standard palace bedroom. Big bed that Sylvain obviously made in a rush, lush carpets that Sylvain has left his junk over everywhere—honestly, he probably  _ needs _ some of that if he’s going to a meeting—and general extravagance galore. Felix locks the door behind him to prevent any sort of maid service and then goes to gather the papers up out of general nerves. He still hasn’t figured out what he needs to say. 

Sylvain, I’ve discovered I’m not actually a sword. No shit, Felix. It took you how many years to give up that pretense? 

Sylvain, I don’t want to go back to Leonie and the crew. Well then what do you want to do? Hmm? You don’t even have an answer?

Fuck. Sylvain, here is the honest truth about why I left. Because you deserve to know the reason I didn’t stick around and wait for you to find me like you promised. You deserve to know why I left you that ring. 

Sylvain, I can’t be Lord Fraldarius. So I can’t stay. I don’t want to go but I can’t stay. Why do you have to make things so difficult for me here? 

Felix groans and flops onto the bed. Remembers he’s wearing swords just a minute too late to save his back some bruising, but he undoes the belt and lets it drop to the floor. Alright, a palace bed is a tad more comfy than the floor of Ashe and Ingrid’s cottage, but the opulence is a bit much, in his opinion. He doubts Byleth would think much of a room with these many golden curly things painted on the ceiling and crown molding in the shapes of roses. He wonders if their queen and archbishop ever made renovations. 

He misses home, the comforting stone of the Fraldarius Castle. He misses Sylvain’s bed and Ms. Ada and Mira. He misses his bed at Garreg Mach. He misses everything. He’s just some all-consuming creature, craving any affection that’s ever been given him and that’s why he’s here now, because Sylvain gives and gives and gives and Felix just takes and then runs, because that’s the kind of person he is. He should leave so he doesn’t take anything more, but he’s too selfish for that. He wants and wants and wants. 

He could never love Sylvain as much as he deserves to be loved. Sweet, smiling Sylvain who pretends that nothing bad has ever happened to him, that he’s just some happy-go-lucky guy who never feared his father, never hid from the snow and wolves for three days before sheer luck brought him home alive. Who pretends he isn’t lonely. Who pretends it’s all okay. 

Felix springs to his feet and starts pacing. It’s not okay. It’s not okay at all. Sylvain can flash his smile all he wants, but Felix, at least, has always seen through him. And Felix might have the emotional intelligence of a dead pigeon—he can admit that, he can!—but he’s pretty sure that Sylvain wants Felix to leave about as much as Felix wants to go, and Felix loves him. 

He loves him. That’s the end of all of it. Felix loves him, and it brings him back to Sylvain, time and time again, and he thinks that part of that has to be because Sylvain loves him too, and pulls him back, time and time again. 

But the idea of becoming Duke Fraldarius makes him so nervous he wants to throw up. So Felix just paces, paces and paces, and then there’s a scuffling at the door that might be a maid except for the befuddled muttering, “Did I lock it when I left? Damn it, where’s the key? Not there...not here…” 

Felix stares at the door as Sylvain is likely checking all his pockets and then, on soft feet, goes and turns the key. He takes a few quick hops back so Sylvain doesn’t run into him when he registers the click of the lock. It takes a few seconds, and Felix is a little gratified that Sylvain actually bursts through the door at speed, ready to apprehend the stranger who unlocked his door from the inside. He doesn’t look quite so fierce in that stupid ruffly shirt, but it’s a start.

Felix just keeps standing, quite still. Sylvain blinks, straightens, tilts his head to the side, and finally his eyes seem to register who’s there as the door clicks shut behind him. Felix gnaws on his lower lip and studies his boots when Sylvain’s stare goes on for just a little too long. 

“I didn’t leave,” he says, when the silence becomes torturous. 

“I see that,” Sylvain replies. He doesn’t sound angry or disappointed or glad or surprised. He just sounds...tired. 

Felix risks looking up. Sylvain stares back, exhausted. “Are you okay?” Felix hazards. “With Dimitri and all? I saw Goneril in the hallway earlier.”

“Ah. That.” Sylvain sighs and runs a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face. “Dimitri was very anxious to discuss the discrepancies in the trade agreement with the King of Almyra, and when it turns out the King of Almyra was visiting with old friends anyway and has a wyvern...that discussion can happen very quickly. Gloucester is here too. Arrived last night.” 

“And whose side are they on?” Felix asks, arms folding of their own accord. 

Sylvain barks a laugh. “Well, we’re all supposed to be on the same side, which is the side where we all get along. But I think Hilda and Lorenz are rather amused by the idea of Claude pulling one over on me, especially over something so small as those tariffs. Dimitri is a little angry with Claude, I’m sure, but he’s hiding it well. And I’m just...making a fool of myself, trying to remember what all those circles and exclamation marks mean.” He brightens up a bit. “But I think Claude is surprised I caught on at all…” And that turns into a sigh. “...Which means I’ve been missing stuff like this for years, and they’re just surprised the idiot finally noticed.”

“You’re not an idiot.” Saints, Felix wants to kill someone. Preferably Gloucester, since that won’t actually start an international war. “Where are the papers? We’ll go over them again. You’re just nervous.” 

“No!” Sylvain snaps, and the genuine anger behind it makes Felix freeze in place. “No, I am an idiot. I wasn’t the one who noticed the numbers were off. That was you. That was  _ you _ , Felix.” He fumbles with his hand and then something bright lands in the carpet near Felix’s feet. “You never should have left me this.” 

Felix stoops to pick up the Fraldarius Crest ring. He turns it over in his hands, staring at the carving he hasn’t seen up close in so long. “You were the only person I could leave it to,” he says softly. 

“You could have stayed and worn it yourself!” Sylvain wrenches at the decorative cape at his shoulder, at his own Gautier ring. “You should have been the Duke Fraldarius! Why would you leave me with so much...Felix...why...why…?” The cape snaps off and wraps around his arm like a decorative mold. The ring goes flying. Sylvain scrubs at his face. “If you ever actually cared for me, why would you leave me that ring?” 

Felix gapes. The ring feels so cold in his hands. “If I ever...Sylvain, what the  _ fuck _ ? You know...you know…” He takes in a deep breath to try to compose himself. “How can you think I didn’t care about you? That I don’t care about you?” 

“If you cared, you would have stayed!” Sylvain goes to throw himself onto the bed, face up. “Goddess, Felix, you have no idea what it’s been like, trying to be two lords at once. You never should have left me that stupid ring.” 

No, that’s wrong. Sylvain is a good lord. Right? 

“I was right to leave it with you,” Felix mutters. “The Fraldarius territory has done well under you.”

“I never wanted the Fraldarius land,” Sylvain tells him with a growl in his tone. “Hell, I didn’t want the Gautier title either. But Dimitri needed me to be the Margrave Gautier. Me instead of my father. So you know what?” He throws his arms up and out. “I went and let him kick your uncle out of power too! Because I thought that I’d just be holding onto the title for you, just for a little bit, until you came back to claim it. Stupid me, thinking you’d take a year to clear your head and then come back for me, stupid me, waiting for you…” He thumps his fists into the mattress. “But I don’t have time to whine about it. I only asked Dimitri for a short break so I could try to clear my head, but you make everything so cloudy for me, Felix.” He sits up and his expression nails Felix to where he stands. “But I’m sure you didn’t bother thinking of me when you snuck in here, right? How many times exactly are you going to force me to watch you walk away?” He rubs a hand over his eyes and stands, grabbing his cape as he heads for the door, voice thick. “I’ll clear my head somewhere else.”

Felix’s words stick in his throat and come out broken. “I don’t want to walk away! I never wanted to walk away! Don’t think you understand me!” 

Sylvain stops at the door, sighs, and his whole body shudders, like it’s trying to curl in on itself still standing. “Why are you here, Felix?”

The Fraldarius ring cuts into Felix’s fingers when his hands clench at his sides. “Because...I’m here because…” He’d known this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation, but being put on the defensive so early and now scrabbling for a reason to make Sylvain stay and listen...he’s no good at this. How ironic, that now it’s Felix trying to make Sylvain stay. 

The ring draws a thin line of blood, a spill of warmth in his cold, cold body, and Felix coughs out, “I need to tell you why I left!”

Another tired—so tired—look angled his direction. “A week ago, that would have been great, Fe. But all I want right now is you telling me you won’t leave this time. Can you tell me that?” 

“I—!” Felix shuts his mouth and looks away. No, he can’t. 

Sylvain sighs again. It quavers. “I used to think I could read you. But I never really could, because you don’t want to be read. And I love you, Felix, but that won’t matter in the end, because we both know that no matter what your reasons, you’ll use them as a reason to leave. And the harder I try to hold on, the more it’s going to hurt.” 

Felix’s stomach lurches. For multiple reasons. 

And then Sylvain laughs, completely resigned. “I guess you really did make yourself into a sword. The more I touch, the more I bleed.” And while Felix is still trying to recover his breath from that, Sylvain opens the door and flees into the hallway, footsteps fading away into nothing in the space of seconds. 

Is this what it feels like to have your chest broken open? Felix has to force himself to breathe again around the pain of those words. He really did make himself into a sword. But he didn’t! That was one of the things he needed to tell Sylvain, that he wasn’t a sword and never had been and it was somehow important. But then...that…

Sylvain’s words could be cruel, but they’d never been cruel like that towards Felix. He can choose to moan over that or figure out the hell why. Felix sucks in another breath and heads for the door, jamming the stupid Fraldarius ring onto his finger. He needs to track Sylvain down so things aren’t left between them like that, for no matter how long. He thinks he needs to head right. 

He doesn’t need to go right for very far. Felix startles and quickens at the wheezing breaths, and finds Sylvain hunched against the wall, small and shaking just like that panic episode he’d had in his own bedroom the morning Felix showed him how his math was off. He’s shoved his cape into his mouth to cry and muffle the sound, but it isn’t helping much. Oh Saints. The Margrave Gautier can’t be found like this in the palace hallway. Felix looks to both empty ways and then unclips his cloak. He sits right at Sylvain’s side and pulls him close before tossing the cloak high and letting it fall over Sylvain instead. His frilly shirt and distinctive hair are lost to the deep blue, and it feels good to be able to slip a hand around Sylvain’s shoulders, holding him tight as he shudders and shakes from the panic. Felix considers saying something but decides against it. He’s no good with words, afterall. He just holds Sylvain tight and stares out the window opposite, and after a moment when Sylvain’s tentative fingers come seeking his hand, he gives that hand with all the love he can muster, squeezing gently. 

“I—hic—only asked for a ten minute break,” Sylvain mumbles. 

“You can be late.” 

“Someone—hic hic—will come looking and they’ll find—hic—you.”

“Fuck it.” Felix scoots closer and pulls Sylvain’s head onto his shoulder. “Fuck it, I don’t care.” 

He will care, actually, but it’s more about Sylvain’s pride. If fucking Gloucester comes swaggering his way up here, Felix needs to get them both out of the hallway. He slips his arm lower to wrap beneath Sylvain’s arms. “Come on, let’s get back in the bedroom.”

It’s an ungainly shuffle and they probably look like some weird four-legged blue beast, but Felix manages it. He locks the bedroom door behind them and dumps Sylvain unceremoniously on the bed before fluffing up some pillows and dumping him on those in a slightly more careful fashion. He tugs his cloak back and straps it on while Sylvain rolls his face into the pillows and sighs out the last of his tears, hands shaking. “Sorry,” he mutters after a minute when Felix settles on the end of the bed. “Sorry ‘bout that.” 

Felix snorts. “I was the one who made you cry.” 

Sylvain shakes his head and curls his knees up. “No, no, that was...that was going to happen anyway. You just...surprised me.” He glances up from the pillow, eyes all red. “I said some awful things.” 

Yeah, he had. But Felix had probably needed to hear some of it. “I say awful things all the time. Don’t worry about it.” 

“No.” Sylvain’s hand snaps down and wraps around Felix’s wrist. “I didn’t mean it. About...you not caring. I know you do. I’m just frustrated and overwhelmed and…” He scrubs angrily at his face. “...and tired of feeling like I’m being laughed at.” He brings a pillow with him as he sits up, still holding Felix’s wrist as he clutches the pillow to him. He looks more like a child than a margrave. “Stupid that I wanted them to laugh at me once, back at school, not take me seriously, but now when I actually want them to shut up and listen, they won’t. I’ll always just be the idiot playboy, and I brought that entirely on myself.”

Felix doesn’t say anything, mostly because he  _ agrees _ but that probably isn’t what Sylvain needs right now. 

“You were wrong about something, though,” he says softly, and reaches to cover Sylvain’s fingers on his wrist with his other hand. “I...I…” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I don’t really think I’m a sword. Or, at least, I changed my mind. I think that was...that was a really easy way to...to...to...not  _ feel _ , or at least turn it off for a little bit, and then it became something I just believed, because then I didn’t have to miss Glenn, or miss you, or really register what I was doing when I killed someone.” He turns his head away from Sylvain’s stare. “It was how I got through the war. Being a sword. But being with you, and...and I realized that I still feel things. A lot. I feel a lot of things and I feel them a lot. And I don’t think a sword works that way, so maybe I’ve been lying all along. I’m not a sword.” He frowns and studies the fringe of the blanket. “I guess that just makes me really bad with feelings.” And, before Sylvain can say anything: “I mean worse than everyone already thinks I am. Because I probably wasn’t even showing...half? No, a quarter? A quarter of what I felt? Maybe less. Saints, I sound insane.” 

Sylvain squeezes his wrist reassuringly. “You sound like a kid who did what he had to do to get by.”

Felix stops studying the blanket fringe and turns to Sylvain once more, leaning right into him. “But it means I want to feel everything now! All the hurt I never let myself feel, all the grief. The guilt. I killed so many people, so isn’t it time I felt guilty about it? And you!” He forces a smile and pats the top of Sylvain’s fluffy head. “I can’t believe how much I love your stupid face.” 

Sylvain’s brows lift. “Just my face?”

Felix shakes his head and grins. “Maybe your shoulders too. You have nice shoulders.” He won’t tell Sylvain he loves him. Not when he’s still not sure if he’s going to walk away again or not. Sylvain laughs and shoves him away. His eyes look a little less red. 

“What about the other stuff?” Felix asks, to keep Sylvain’s mind off the trade agreement. “Did you tell Dimitri about his speech and Ferdinand and how that should go?”

Sylvain brightens by at least a factor of three and tosses the pillow aside. “I did! I did do that! Dimitri really likes what we wrote, so we’re going to send it down to Ferdinand and start the process. By the time Dimitri travels to Enbarr, everything should be all set, provided Ferdinand doesn’t get murdered by von Vestra first.” 

“He’s officially free now, huh?” 

“As free as our dear Ferdie lets him be. Which...might be a lot, actually. Those two always got along once they stopped hating each other.” 

“Yes, well, good luck to them.” Felix hides the sincerity in his voice with a shrug. Von Vestra is all they have left of the old Empire. Letting him go free is...an end. An end he thinks some of them still needed. He clears his throat. “Alright, then, tell me which parts of the trade agreement Claude is being an ass about.”

“All of them.” 

“Thank you for that helpful comment. Right, you know this stuff, don’t let him get to you just because he’s being...Claude-ey.” 

It’s a bit of a crash course, based on what Felix can remember and the papers that had been left in the room, but Sylvain knows more than his frantic brain had recalled. His eyes are back to their normal color, no trace of red, and his spine is a lot straighter by the time they’ve run through all the major points. 

“Oh, and if I circled something a bunch of times that means he was  _ really  _ trying to pull one on us,” Felix finishes. “Underlines are small things. Just in case you, you know, forget stuff again and need a pointer.” 

Sylvain breathes in and out a few times. “I think I got it.” 

“Math is just board games with numbers.”

“That is such bullshit, Felix. If you want to be inspirational, come up with something better.” 

“Saints, nobles are fussy. Okay, just picture Claude’s face when Dimitri rejects the agreement.” 

Sylvain gives him the most exasperated look and then leans in, takes Felix’s jaw in hand, and kisses him, sweet and gentle and lingering. “Whoops, I broke a rule,” he says with a faked grimace, and then grabs his detached cape so he can sling it back onto his shoulder. His hair is an absolute wreck. He fetches the Gautier ring from where he’d thrown it.

“You know you look like you just had sex?” Felix calls, smirking and laying out to lounge on the bed. 

Sylvain winks and licks his top lip. “You offering?” 

That had backfired. Felix feels his cheeks go pink. “Just...go away.” He shoos a chuckling Sylvain out the door with a flapping hand and then melts into the bed the moment the door shuts. Alright, he has a lot to think about. 

But first, he needs to let himself  _ hurt _ , because he knows that’s what’s coming and maybe if he hurts now it won’t be as bad when it actually happens. He slides off his boots and finds a comfortable spot among the pillows. He’s a bit tired, actually. The blankets on the floor beneath the window really hadn’t been that comfortable and he hadn’t slept much.

Sylvain won’t mind if he naps a little. Would probably say it was cute or something similarly humiliating. And then Felix will be prepared for the aftermath of the meeting, no matter the outcome. 

Yeah. It’s alright to sleep.

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

And so he dreams of another windowsill and staring out at the same stars, wedged into the window as tight as he can go. The Duke Fraldarius. Duke. Duke Fraldarius. Duke  _ Felix _ Fraldarius. 

No matter how he tries to shape it in his head, it comes out mangled. 

Of course, he’d known when his father died that he’d inherit. But the sudden reality of filling those shoes is more terrifying than any battle they fought. By a large margin. Felix may not have gotten along with his father, but his father would have known what to do: how to extend the olive branch to surviving noble houses, how to procure food for the coming winter. How to help Dimitri. Fuck, Felix has no idea what he’s supposed to say to Dimitri. 

So I know I’m supposed to be your closest advisor, but I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. This was never supposed to be me. It was supposed to be Glenn. It was always supposed to be Glenn and by the time Glenn wasn’t around, I was too stupid to listen to my father when he tried to teach me how to do this. So we’re all fucked because I’m a boar-headed idiot who didn’t listen to his father when I had the chance. That’s right. I’m the boar. I always have been.

He can’t stand the thought of disappointing Dimitri like that. Disappointing everyone like that. He’s just a weapon. He’s just a sword. Don’t they all know that by now? He can’t see the big picture. He’s not like Sylvain with those complicated games or the Professor studying a battlefield. Felix is just ridiculously single-minded, latching onto problems like a terrier with a rat. A flood could wash away half his territory and he wouldn’t notice because he’s in an argument with Bergliez or Goneril or someone. And he certainly doesn’t strategize, beyond the simple idea of ‘kill the enemy’. And—he can’t believe he has to admit this—the moment someone treats him like he’s stupid, he loses it. Maybe. A little. It’s why fucking Gloucester has always been so fucking obnoxious to him. Riegan too. Which probably  _ does _ make him stupid, but he can’t help it. He’s always been quick to anger.

No, a lie. He only started to be quick to anger after Glenn died. But it’s still a trait that would make him a poor leader. 

Part of him wants to seek Sylvain out, but his pride stops him. Sylvain had stepped right up there at Dimitri’s side, hadn’t he? Sylvain, who spent miserable but informative years learning how to be the Margrave Gautier while Felix was off being a squire, learning the sword. Sylvain, who has some idea of what he’s doing. Felix’s arms ache for Sylvain’s hold and he almost feels sick with how much he wants to track down that kiss. 

A forever sort of thing, Sylvain had promised. But Sylvain is a good lord and a better man and Felix knows that a forever sort of thing will always be with the Margrave Gautier, because Sylvain would never abandon Dimitri like that. 

But Felix? He can’t be the Duke Fraldarius. Not the way his father was. Not the way Glenn would have been. He’s just Felix and he can’t be what Dimitri needs. He’ll just let them all down. Disappoint them. He feels so small imagining their expressions when they realize he can’t do it, that he doesn’t even know how. 

He’s just a useless, useless second son.

Could he just step down? Tell Dimitri that he’s sorry but he’s better off as a personal guard or something? No, Saints, everyone would try to talk him out of it, insist that he’ll be a great duke and just needs to give it a try. And then he’ll just disappoint them. Any way he goes about this, he just lets everyone down. 

“Hi Felix!” It’s Ashe’s chirpy voice. Felix raises a hand in a wave without looking away from the night sky. Ashe’s footsteps pass him and then disappear down the hallway. 

Ashe. He’ll let down Ashe. And Annette, with her cute little songs. Mercedes, sweet and strong Mercedes. Dedue, who he still owes a lot of apologies to. Ingrid, oh how he’ll let Ingrid down. And the Professor, who always had that strange belief that Felix could achieve things. 

He’ll let down Dimitri. His king. His king who came back to him. 

And he’ll let down Sylvain. Even if Sylvain never says it aloud, the truth of it will ring in Felix’s bones every day. No kisses or promises of forever will take that away. In fact, they’ll probably just make it worse. 

Sylvain doesn’t deserve forever with a coward. And Felix does not deserve that promised kiss.

The night sky does not offer answers. Except for one. 

His limbs move faster than his brain now. If he engages his brain, he might decide on another course of action. But no. Take his sword and run. That’s the only way of getting out of this. Of escaping the Duke Fraldarius. Of not disappointing everyone. Well, sure, they might be disappointed when they find out he’d ditched them, but it will save them more disappointment in the long run. He’s being considerate of their feelings here, for once in his life. 

Just because he hadn’t sought Sylvain out doesn’t mean he doesn’t know where he is. He loves Sylvain, after all. During this war, he’s never not known where Sylvain is. He crosses the castle, not running into anyone, and enters the hall. Felix’s boots make no noise as he steps between the bedrolls of sleeping soldiers towards the one he’s seeking. And there’s Sylvain. He can have such a goofy expression on his face when he sleeps. Felix brushes Sylvain’s hair from his eyes and thinks of his own promise to wait. This is cruel, what he’s doing. He knows it. It’s the worst thing he could do and if Sylvain hates him forever, then he deserves it. 

I’m scared, Sylvain. I’m so scared of failing you, I’d rather lose you completely. The biggest fool in all of Fódlan, right? 

Felix slips the ring with the Fraldarius Crest out of the little pouch he’s been keeping it in since it was pulled from his father’s dead finger. It’s been passed down from the Duke Fraldarius to the Duke Fraldarius since the first Duke Fraldarius ever came to be, if you don’t believe Sylvain’s story about the snow fairies. It should have gone to Glenn. Felix will leave it to Sylvain. There is no one else he would trust to look after his land, his people, with that wonderful, cunning and strategic mind of his. And it’s the only thing Felix has to give, a symbol of the heart he’s leaving behind. He slips the ring into the pocket of Sylvain’s discarded shirt. May it always bring Sylvain back home, because Felix doesn’t need it now.

Sylvain will be the Lord Fraldarius, and he will do a better job than Felix ever could. This is for the best. The Kingdom will be greater for it, and Felix can just disappear before he fucks anything up. Before he even has the chance to disappoint them. 

He doesn’t look back as he sneaks out of the hall. If he looks back, he may decide to stay forever, but it’s best for everyone if he just goes now. No goodbyes, no explanations, because they’ll try to get him to stay. No, he’ll simply vanish, and they can forget he was ever there. A clean break.

He wouldn’t be able to look Sylvain in the eyes and hand him that ring anyway.

It’s too simple to hop out an open window onto the palace grounds. Even easier to escape into the city. Enbarr still smoulders in places. Saints, what a pointless loss of life, all so an emperor could refuse the mercy Felix never would have offered at all. 

Within a half hour, Felix is disappearing over the hills, heading towards the sea. He’ll travel to Brigid first, he decides. Spend some time where no one will look for him. After that? He can come back to Fódlan. There’s sure to be plenty of work for a mercenary, right? Felix could make an excellent mercenary. 

If he stops for a moment and stares up at the stars while a few tears trickle down his face, that’s his business. His and his alone. And then he locks up his heart and seals it with a promise. I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait for you. 

He won’t begrudge Sylvain for moving on. For marrying. For having children. But his love will remain in one person’s hands for the rest of his life. 

I’ll wait for you Sylvain. I’m waiting now. And I’ll keep waiting for an impossible forever, long after you think I’m gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a rough chapter folks. Really, really raw. Of course there's nothing like rape/non-con, suicide/suicide attempts, or stuff that I would have warned for in the specific Ao3 system, but it's very intense emotionally and I feel like I should maybe warn for that. Obviously I wrote it for a reason because I don't like writing angst just for the angst sake (several readers gasp in surprise here but I really don't!!) so if you don't have any specific content you watch out for when reading M rated fic, I wouldn't worry about it. This is just me trying to be careful. (I used to warn for when sex began and ended in my earliest fics like this is not a new thing for me.) If you DO have triggers you want to watch out for, skip down a few lines to the spoilers section where I vaguely explain what happens, you can decide whether or not that will be a problem for you, and if it is, you can jump to a specific place in order to avoid that content!
> 
> On a very different note, thank you so much for the kind comments and recommending this story to other people and the kudos and the just general reading thing, it's so wonderful. You're wonderful. I feel like I say that a lot these days but it's true~
> 
> SPOILERS: Character A will ask to be physically hit/punched, harmed with a weapon, or subjected to sex without prep. Basically a bunch of forms of trying to get character B to hurt them. NONE of these things actually happen in any way, shape, or form because character B refuses every single idea, but it is requested in an attempt to be hurt because character A thinks they deserve it to be hurt by character B to make things even between them. I repeat that none of these happen and are completely rejected by character B, but the requests are made.  
> If this is something that will trigger you, please just find and read on from THIS LINE: “You want the truth?” Felix asks softly.  
> That way, you can read most of the important stuff without something that would have triggered you and won't leave you confused during the rest of the story. I hope this helps you avoid triggering content!

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

It’s gone all pink and yellow when Felix wakes up, blinking in confusion. How long had he slept? His one arm has gone numb. He rolls over, shaking his arm, and runs right into Sylvain, stretched out beside him. He opens his eyes when Felix bumps him. “Sleepyhead.” He grins, and that tells Felix everything he needs to know about how the rest of the meeting went. 

“Did Claude retreat in tears on his precious wyvern?” 

“Actually, he just thanked me for finding his ‘mistakes’ and Dimitri invited them all to dinner. Well, me too, but I thought I should check on you first. I guess I’m missing dinner right now, but I can always steal something later.” He turns his head and winks, hair flopping in his eyes. “The cooks love a man in a stupid uniform.” 

Felix huffs at the idea of Dimitri inviting Claude to dinner, but he supposes they’re both kings and that’s the sort of thing kings do to be friendly. He reaches over blindly with his numb arm and it happens to land on Sylvain’s stomach. Pat pat. “Good job.” 

“Yeah, well…” Sylvain’s face turns more serious and he scoots closer. “Now I have time to give you all my attention. You said you needed to tell me why you left. I want to listen, Felix, please. I’m sorry about how I acted before.” 

Oh. That. The blind momentum that had carried Felix to that point has dwindled significantly. He sits up and goes to perch on the edge of the bed. “It wasn’t a good enough reason,” he says, voice husky. 

“But it was _your_ reason,” Sylvain replies immediately. “Let me hear it, please.” 

No. Felix stands and unclips his cloak before going to stare out the window. His shoulders feel so heavy. “You should go to dinner.” 

“Felix…”

“Sylvain. Go to dinner. With Dimitri. He’s your king and you owe him…” Fuck his voice for being so choked up. “He’s your priority, alright? I can still tell you when you come back.” 

Sylvain goes silent and Felix can imagine his shocked expression. “Alright,” he says at last. “I’ll be fashionably late. But I’ll be back soon?” 

Felix watches the setting sun over the many rooftops and gables of the capital. He can’t even enjoy a sunset in this wretched city. “I’ll be here.” 

There are the sounds of boots being pulled on, capes being attached, and then soft footsteps before Sylvain taps his arm. “Can I have your ring?” he asks. _Your_ ring, Felix notes. “Someone will probably realize it’s missing sooner or later.” 

Felix nods and tugs the Fraldarius ring off before setting it in Sylvain’s proffered palm. More little noises, and then the door opens and shuts. Felix rests his forearms on the windowsill and sighs. No sunset, and then he won’t be able to see the stars. 

What a lonely sky indeed. He doesn’t know how Sylvain could prefer it. 

_There’s not anything great about stars. They just sit there in the sky, not doing anything. So far away. So lonely. At least here you can’t see that they’re lonely._

Felix has spent too many nights staring at stars to ever think of them as lonely. They are constant companions to him, a gentle reminder that the world may spin beneath his feet but the sky remains the same. Why the hell would Sylvain think of them as lonely? 

Felix imagines Sylvain staring out those massive windows at the Gautier Mansion, watching stars too far away to even imagine reaching. All alone, eyes fixed on the sky. 

At least in Fhirdiad, he doesn’t have to see just how far away they are. 

Felix’s fists clench upon the sill. Saints, Sylvain. I know I think I could always read you, but why couldn’t you have told me this once, just this one time? 

Long nights in the Gautier Mansion, eight years and counting, with no one coming to save him and waiting for a runaway who never even said goodbye, Sylvain watched stars and convinced himself that _they_ were the lonely ones. 

***

Felix is eerily quiet when Sylvain gets back from dinner, which is saying something, because silent and brooding is sort of Felix’s thing. He’s still staring out the window even though the sun has disappeared to be replaced by the hazy night sky full of city light that Felix hates. Sylvain is extra loud crossing the room and taking his boots off. Felix hasn’t bothered lighting any lamps, so Sylvain lets it be. Felix always felt at home in the night.

“You okay?” he finally asks, and Felix turns, outlined against the night, jaw set and eyes fierce. 

“Hit me,” he says, soft enough Sylvain could mistake the words for something else, but then he shakes his head and says with much more conviction, “Hit me.” 

Which is...what? 

It must be some weird joke. “Why would I hit you?” Sylvain undoes his cape and lays it on the rumpled covers of the bed. 

“Because I want you to,” Felix replies, dead serious, and Sylvain’s head snaps up to stare at him. Felix’s mouth is a harsh line, his eyes blazing. “I want you to hit me. Punch me. Whatever.”

Sylvain doesn’t have the words to reply. Felix makes an irritated clicking sound and thumps a fist hard against the glass. Sylvain almost expects it to break. At least crack. But it doesn’t. Felix hits it again, says almost soothingly, “It’s not hard. I won’t try to hit you back.”

“But I don’t want to hit you,” Sylvain says numbly. His feet automatically take him a few stumbling steps back. Anything to put distance between him and this strange version of Felix he doesn’t recognize. 

The same annoyed clicking sound, and then Felix reaches for one of his belts and unearths the dagger Sylvain had given him. “Okay, like this then.” He grabs for a sleeve and begins to tug it up his arm. “Use this.”

“Fucking Saints, Felix!” Sylvain races across the room and snatches Felix’s wrist as he starts to offer the weapon in Sylvain’s direction, slamming the hand with the dagger against the window. He squeezes hard, using the rest of his body to pin Felix still until the dagger falls from Felix’s fingers. They’re just a jumbled mess now, Sylvain’s shoulder shoving at Felix’s face, Felix’s elbow jammed into Sylvain’s stomach. “What is wrong with you?” Sylvain wheezes. “What the hell is wrong with you?” 

Felix struggles to free his face from Sylvain’s shoulder, and then stares up at him with a dawning expression. “Fuck me,” he says. “Here. Right here.” He shoves at Sylvain and then tugs him back and begins rucking his shirt up out of his trousers, actually growling when it doesn’t want to slip over Sylvain’s shoulders. He yanks. Something rips. Sylvain has no idea what he’s supposed to do. 

“I’m not going to fuck you!” he tries, and feels dirty when Felix starts undoing his own trousers. “No, Felix, seriously, stop it.” 

“It’s fine,” Felix mutters, and runs a hand through his hair in agitation. “It’s fine, it’s fine.” His hands pause at pushing his trousers down—he’s all over the place, which is so unlike him that Sylvain is scared—and then he drops to his knees, reaching for Sylvain’s hips. “This is fine too.” His voice is just a hoarse whisper and Sylvain can’t make out his face. He settles for hopping backwards onto the bed like a sanctuary before Felix can even touch him. Saints, why would he want a blowjob now? What sort of nut would he have to be?

“No, not fucking fine, why are you acting like this?” 

“I want to,” Felix says in a desperate voice, but he just slouches in on himself on the floor now Sylvain is safe on the bed. “Fuck me now. Don’t bother with prep. I don’t need it. Just fuck me. Sylvain, just fuck me. Please.” Sylvain can see just fine as Felix reaches up and undoes the ribbon in his hair, lets it flutter to the floor. “Like any one of your girls.” 

The ribbon makes no sound as it curls upon itself on the plush carpet.

For a moment, they both just sit, Sylvain breathing hard while Felix seems to barely move at all. And then Felix’s hand creeps up onto the bed, clutching at the blankets. “Fuck me, just fuck me,” Felix whispers like a mantra. “Fuck me, just…” His hand stills as his voice breaks, and it’s a moment before he continues. “Make me...make...I’m fine, I won’t bleed…”

Goddess, Sylvain doesn’t know how to deal with this. He leans over the side of the bed and reaches until he can grab Felix’s chin and tilt his face upwards. “I’m not going to fuck you.” 

Felix’s eyes are still bright, and they seem to blaze as his brows knit with not anger, but irritation. “You don’t want me?”

“Of course I want you!” Sylvain snaps. “It’s not a question of wanting you.” 

“Then fuck me.” Felix yanks his chin free and bares his neck, right where Sylvain likes to leave marks. “Just fuck me.” He shoves against the floor and stands so fast he almost collides with Sylvain, and then staggers a few steps away from the bed. “It’s okay, I said. I won’t bleed. Maybe a little, but it’s fine.” His face cracks in half with a smile. “Or you can hit me. Punch me. Make me bleed. I want you to. I want you to make me bleed…” 

That’s fucking enough. Sylvain vaults off the bed and grabs Felix by the arms, holding him still, holding him steady, holding him so he won’t slip even farther away. “Are you out of your mind? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

The smile slides from Felix’s face to be replaced by defiance, then desperation, and then for a simple aching need. His foot kicks at where the dagger fell to the floor. “Please,” he whispers. 

Make him bleed.

“I’m not going to be the thing you hurt yourself with,” Sylvain says, shaking his head softly from side to side, and he lets go of Felix’s arms before twisting away, escaping past the bed into the shadows of the room. Discarded papers crinkle beneath his boots. Felix slowly folds back to the floor, the bedsheets dragging when he reaches for them. Sylvain listens to the sheets rustle and feels this awful void inside himself, the collapse of all his panic and anger over the past few minutes. So is this it, in the end? Is he just a tool for Felix’s self hatred? Is that why Felix came back to him this time? 

Because he wanted pain?

Sylvain shoves a hand into his hair and closes his eyes against the world. “I’m not...I know how it feels, when you want to hurt yourself however you can.” All those stupid trysts when he was a teenager, trying to prove he was just a Crest to them all. _You’re just determined to hurt yourself any way you can and I’m sick of it!_ Felix had shouted that at him once. His hand slides from his hair to cover his eyes. His throat aches like he’s drunk acid when he croaks out, “I’m not a sword either, you know? So why are you trying to make me hurt you?” 

“That’s not…” Felix stops, and his silence feeds into the void in Sylvain’s chest. “I just…” Again, the silence, before all the words rush out at once. “You _should_ hurt me. You’ll _want_ to hurt me. But you can barely spar anymore so you should hurt me this way...instead…”

“I would never want to hurt you like this,” Sylvain mutters, sliding a hand down his face and then realizing Felix probably has his shirt. He’s chilly without it. “I’m not going to hit you. I’m not going to cut you. And I sure as hell am not going to fuck you to hurt you.”

“You did it before,” Felix mumbles, and Sylvain can see him sitting up against the bed, the sheets he’d pulled bundled in his lap. He plucks a piece of red off the floor and tosses it Sylvain’s direction without so much glancing his way. “You did it all the time, to all those other people. Fucked them and hurt them. Why stop now?”

Sylvain’s jaw tightens. “I might have wanted to hurt people’s feelings, but I never hurt them the way you want me to hurt you. And I’m done using sex as a weapon.” Soft sheets, skin bathed in sunlight, that unimaginable feeling of giddy happiness. “This guy I knew once made me want to be a better person than that.” He fists the fabric of his shirt in his hands and then yanks it on over his head. Goddess, he needs to breathe. He needs to get out of here. He starts towards the door, hears a stumble and a bump, gets his hand on the door handle, and then Felix makes a small sound of protest. Sylvain stops, feet halting midstep, but he doesn’t turn around. 

“You want the truth?” Felix asks softly. 

Sylvain nods and hopes Felix can see it in the shadows.

Felix heaves in breath and then lets it out slow. “I left because I was scared.” 

Sylvain pauses for a second, and then frowns, hand slipping from the door handle. Those words don’t make sense. Felix...Felix isn’t afraid. Of anything. Besides possibly losing someone again. But beyond that: nothing. 

“Scared of what?” Sylvain asks, and when Felix doesn’t answer, he turns. “Hey, hey, Felix. Scared of what?”

Felix has shifted to stand against the wall just beside the window, a dark splotch against the opulent decoration. His voice, when it comes, is a crackling snap of a word. “Failing.” 

That hasn’t cleared things up. “Failing at what?” Sylvain asks, taking a few steps in his direction. His feet pass from the shadows into the lights of the city shining through the window. “Failing at what?” 

Felix crosses his arms, crosses his legs at the ankle. Making himself small. His head dips down, but his reply is still loud, frustrated, angry. “At being the Duke Fraldarius, alright! I was scared of...scared of…” He groans and his head snaps back to bang against the wall. It sounds painful. “I was scared of trying to be something that...I would not be able to do.” Even in the dark, the tension in his body, the hardness of his face, and the gleam of contempt in his eyes are obvious. 

Sylvain swallows and crosses his arms as well, fingers tapping. He looks to the window and watches clouds move across the sky. Perhaps the capital will be filled with snow soon as well. There’s still that void in his chest, but now a spark of anger flickers inside of it. He doesn’t look at Felix’s pathetic figure. Then he might lose this anger, and he wants to feel. Wants to feel allowed to feel it. Isn’t he allowed to feel it, after so long? “So you mean to say that you abandoned all of us because you were _scared_ ? You abandoned Dimitri, your king, because you were _scared_ ? You left _me_ with _two territories_ to run because you were scared? You left me without _any warning whatsoever_ , just a fucking ring in my pocket, galavanting off without thinking how much _it would ruin me_ because you were _scared?_ ” 

In the very corner of Sylvain’s eye, Felix bundles himself up even tighter, fingers clutching at his vest and straining the material. His voice this time though, is barely a whisper. “...yes.” 

Sylvain shuts his eyes, bites his lip, and moves to where he knows the window is. He grips the sill, wondering if the wood will split beneath his fingers. Rests his forehead against the glass. “Fuck you.” 

It doesn’t get the anger out.

“You think I wasn’t scared?” Sylvain tries again. “You think I wasn’t terrified of becoming a lord? Because I was terrified, and hoping every single day that you’d be back because then at least I could be terrified _with_ you.” He inhales with a shudder, feels the poison build behind his words. “But no. You were scared. And the world just... _revolves_ around you, Felix! It revolves around your...your...bad attitude and your issues with your dad and the fact you can’t get along with Dimitri and then somehow everything becomes about _you_ , so it’s alright if you run away and do whatever the fuck you want, it’s alright if everyone else was scared too, because Felix just…” Goddess, he hates these words. Doesn’t even really mean them. He just wants to _hurt._ He’d been lying before. It turns out he does want to be the thing Felix hurts himself with. He wants to be his sword. “Felix just makes everything about him and no one else matters at all!” 

That’s it. He’s all out of words now. Maybe more will line themselves up on his tongue in a moment, but right now he’s empty. 

“You’re wrong.” Another sentence, barely there. “It’s about Glenn.”

Sylvain barks a laugh. “Of course it’s about Glenn. It’s always about fucking Glenn.” Sylvain bites his tongue after that. This isn’t Glenn’s problem, and he shouldn’t drag the dead into this. And he should at least not be a complete asshole and let Felix tell his truth. He goes silent, and waits for Felix to continue. 

Felix sounds so, so tired when he speaks, like even talking is steadily marching him closer to the grave. “I wasn’t raised to be a duke. Glenn...Glenn was. Glenn was ready to be Duke Fraldarius. And he would have been perfect at it!” His voice shatters, something under pressure for far too long, all sharp punctuations of sound. “He would have been perfect at it but...but he died, and my father was so obsessed with giving Dimitri a second father that he completely forgot to tell me what the _fuck_ I was supposed to do. I just...learned how to fight.” He sighs, and when Sylvain opens his eyes and turns his head against the glass, he finds Felix staring at him, not angry or pleading, but just rather like his voice. Dying. Dead. He blinks slowly and then sighs again. “And then Father died before the war ended, before he could show me what to do. So I don’t understand fancy etiquette or diplomacy or writing with all the squiggles or proper taxation. I was raised to be a second son. A weapon for the king, and maybe a political pawn if they could find some poor girl to marry me off to.” He shakes his head slowly and turns away, perching his chin on his folded arms. 

“You think any of the rest of us felt ready to become nobles?” Sylvain asks, his grip on the windowsill slightly slackening. The glass feels so nice and cool against the side of his face. 

Felix shrugs. “I doubt it. But…” And again, that broken voice that doesn’t fit him at all. “I’m not my father. And I’m not Glenn. I’m just me and I never learned how to do this. I’d probably start a war at the first convention I went to. Kill my people of starvation within two years. I know your father was the worst, Sylvain, but at least he taught you that sort of stuff. But my father was...my father was…” He stands suddenly and walks over to the bed, catches one of the posts and clings to it as if it’s the only thing keeping him standing now he’s suddenly trying to use his legs. He casts his other arm out in a vague half circle. Sylvain turns against the glass to face him. “The Shield of Faerghus!” Felix declares. “The great Shield of Faerghus who died protecting his king! And Glenn was the same! And Dimitri, and Dimitri…” He really does slump down the bed there, resuming his huddle on the floor as he wails, a terrible sound that Sylvain aches to shush, a terrible sound like a sword is being pulled out of his chest. Sylvain has never heard him sound like this. Like a child. Even when he was a child, Felix never sounded so lost. “Dimitri needed the Shield of Faerghus! He needed my _father_ ! My father would have known exactly what to do, exactly what needed to be said to which people, and my father _wasn’t there_ !” He heaves in breath and turns so Sylvain can see the silver tracks of tears starting down his face. “It was me! It was just me, and how was I supposed to be my father? How could I possibly be my father?” He wipes at his eyes and sniffs and continues, in a quieter voice, “That’s why I left, and that’s why I have to stay away. Because I’m scared and I can’t...I can’t…” He reaches a hand up to cover his eyes. “I’d let you all down. I know it. And I can’t...I know I _did_ let you down sometimes...maybe a lot...by being stubborn and angry and I let you down, Sylvain, by being scared, but that would be different. If I was Duke Fraldarius, I would let you down in worse ways that would affect everyone, cost lives, and I can’t stand the thought of standing in front of you or Ingrid or Dimitri or Mercedes and anyone really, and you might say it’s alright but we’d all know the truth is that it isn’t. I needed to be able to step right into my father’s place and do it right. Dimitri would be relying on me to do it right. But I couldn’t. And that would make him weak, to rely on someone who couldn’t be what he expected. It was better he had no one, so he wouldn’t have those expectations. So I left and I didn’t tell you, because if I talked to you, I knew I would stay. And I left you the ring because you were the only one I trusted to take my place, and take care of what I couldn’t. Because you’re a better man, Sylvain. I’m just…”

He takes his hand away from his face and stares at the tears that cling to his palm. “It should have been me,” he says with a little nod. “It should have been me who got stabbed that day. Who died. Then my father would be alive and none of this would have happened. Everyone would be better off.” 

“Don’t say stuff like that,” Sylvain mutters, and Felix looks at him with eyebrows raised. “You think I would be happier with you dead?”

“Well, you sure as hell aren’t happier with me alive.” Felix sighs again and his head falls to one side. “I am so sorry for what I did to you, Sylvain. And it’s okay if you hate me. I don’t mind. I knew you would hate me, even as I left.” He stands again and approaches the window. His face is all blotchy in the night lights. “If I could have, I would have stayed forever. But I couldn’t, anymore than I could have asked you to come with me. You became a lord. I left. We both did what was best for Fódlan.” There’s no question in his voice, though his tone turns a little gentler with every step until he’s toe to toe with Sylvain. He reaches out and brushes a hand down Sylvain’s cheek. Sylvain refuses to shy away from the touch, but he doesn’t lean into it either. Felix looks absolutely miserable. Whispers in a breath with a small shake of his head, “I’ve missed you everyday but I’ve never regretted it. I don’t have that right.” He smiles a little. “Would you like to hit me now?”

“I love you,” Sylvain says, because that’s the cruelest thing he can think to say. The thing Felix has never actually said back. Felix raises a brow, but then sighs and nods. 

“You love me.” He leans in, pauses, waits for a reaction, and doesn’t get one. “I would actually like to kiss you,” he admits, eyes downcast. “If you’ll let me.”

Sylvain could be a jerk about it. But he actually really wants to kiss Felix back. Because he does love him, whether he means it to hurt or not. Because he wants to soothe over the memory of this night so he can remember today with at least some fondness. And because he just wants to kiss Felix, no real reason at all. Or maybe because he wants to undo all the hurting they’ve done to each other. So he reaches out, tugs on the back of Felix’s neck, and shoves his own face forward. Felix snatches at the invitation and kisses Sylvain in a hungry, longing sort of way that tells Sylvain that this? This is a last kiss. Felix has said what he meant to say, and now their time is up. Sylvain shuts his eyes tight and feels the tears against his palms when he takes Felix’s face in his hands, holding him close for this last time. Felix’s breath shudders between them, and then he bumps their noses together and kisses Sylvain one more quick peck. “I am the worst sort of person for doing this to you,” he whispers.

“But you’re always going to leave.” Reality is a dull ache in Sylvain’s bones. After a moment, Felix nods. 

“I think...I think it’s easiest if we stop pretending we’re cut out for a happy ending.” He backs away a few steps. “I’ll leave now. I promise you won’t ever see me again.”

“Wait.” Sylvain abandons the window and snatches some of his junk off the floor. “I think...I think I would like to leave first. Just so I don’t...I don’t have to watch you walk away from me again.”

So you can watch me walk away from you, this very last time. He doesn’t need to actually say the words out loud to know Felix understands. It’s my turn to leave you behind.

“Alright,” Felix says brusquely, and steps to the window, hands coming to rest clasped behind his back. He doesn’t look at Sylvain as he says it, staring out at the sky instead. Then he clears his throat and says, evenly, “Goodbye Sylvain.” 

Goddess, what Sylvain wouldn’t do to change this moment. To not be clipping his cape back on. To not be gathering his things and packing to leave. To not feel the absence of Felix’s eyes on him the entire time and hear the echo of his own words. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, and I hope that hurts you as much as you hurt me. Because there is no changing anything. They have their chosen paths, and those paths won’t weave together, no matter how much he wishes they could. 

They’ll both do what they believe best for Fódlan. No room for love that was doomed from the start. 

“Goodbye Felix,” he mutters, and keeps his stride even as he moves for the door, bag slung over one shoulder. Focus on something else. Anything else. The latch in his hand, the swing of the door, the rug of the hallway carpet beneath his feet, the door clicking shut behind him. His footsteps get faster as he travels down the hallway, and then it’s nearly a dash down the stairs. He won’t cry. He won’t let his face be anything but an impassive mask. If he doesn’t show the emotions, maybe he doesn’t feel them. 

His palms still feel wet from touching the silver tears on Felix’s face. 

Come on, Gautier. Smile and wink and wave. Don’t you know the motions by now? Wink and smile, because Felix said that wink always drove him insane, and then he’d tried to wink and it turns out Felix can’t wink but Sylvain won’t tell him because it’s adorable to watch him try…

Fuck it. Sylvain breaks into a run, scaring the hell out of every guard he passes, but they know him by his outfit by now and he doesn’t get stopped. A single doorman struggles to open the palace doors when he sees someone coming, and Sylvain squeezes through the small space available when he hits the doors at a sprint. Where did he leave his horses? With the knights, right. He tries to organize his things a little better as he approaches the gates, but it doesn’t really matter. If he lost a glove while making his escape, oh well. A flash of his rings and a guard is sent to fetch the Margrave’s horses through the guard passages. Ten minutes of waiting, and then he has both horses set to go, trying hard not to remember the person who had ridden behind him all the way here, both of them preparing to say goodbye. 

He _should_ let Dimitri know he’s heading out but he just can’t stomach the idea of entering the palace again. He can’t stay here a moment longer. So he leaves with his horses and leads them through the gates, off palace grounds, and into the city. Normally it would be so engaging to him, the lights and sounds and rush of people, but now he thinks he understands how Felix feels. He needs to get out. 

He gets it now, at least. Why Felix left. Doesn’t agree, of course, but it’s true that Felix had never shown even the slightest inclination towards becoming a duke. Maybe he would have, had Glenn not died how he did, when he did. If Rodrigue had not died how he did, when he did. But they had both died exactly how they did, and that left Felix all alone with no one to help him become the Duke Fraldarius, the Shield of Faerghus, the right hand man of the king.

And none of them ever realized—not Ingrid, not Dimitri, not Sylvain—because Felix never wanted them to realize, so he simply said nothing, and they all assumed he was alright. Felix wears his anger on his sleeve, and it doesn’t leave room for many other emotions to show. 

The fact Felix was frightened enough of becoming Duke Fraldarius to run away from it completely is a hot shame in Sylvain’s stomach as he leads the horses through the crowds, strong enough to engulf the void inside him. He should have noticed. Or at least he should have asked. A few hours of mourning and then they’d moved on, Rodrigue’s sacrifice a noble and terrible thing of the past in a war where casualties could barely be counted. But Felix hadn’t moved on. He and Dimitri were so alike that way, except Felix hid it better. He’d simply never learned _how_ to push past grief. Glenn had been his constant shadow since the age of thirteen. And then his father threw himself in front of a blade. 

_It should have been me who got stabbed that day._

Sylvain stops to bury his face in the soft neck of his mount, squeezing his eyes shut. A few people swear at him for stopping suddenly but they’re easy to ignore. This would be easier if he could just be _angry_ , to know Felix was being selfish and stupid and wrong, but his brain won’t shut up and he can still feel tears on his palms that were long wiped away. Goddess, why hadn’t he just asked, once, once in those nights they had slept curled together, how Felix was feeling about going home and taking his title? Of all the stupid things Sylvain must have said in that time, why couldn’t he have asked the question that could have changed everything? He could have helped if he’d just known. If Felix had told him. If Felix had felt like he could tell _anyone_ . But now they’re both stuck in their chosen roles, doing their best for Fódlan at the cost of each other and fucking _Saints_ Sylvain can’t stay in these thoughts anymore. Let this be a dream. Let it be a dream. Let me wake up and it’s the night before the attack on Enbarr and I still have the chance to grab Felix before he goes to get us breakfast and tell him I fucking love him and I’ll help him with everything I am so he can be the Duke Fraldarius. Please. Please. 

Please.

The darkness of the countryside is a comforting blanket as he exits the city, welcoming him and all the heaviness in his chest. Sylvain mounts his horse and urges her into a trot, checks that his lead is following dutifully, and then clicks his tongue to go faster. Faster. Maybe he can leave it all behind if he just rides fast enough, like black ink spilled on the path as he goes. 

Faster. 

Faster. 

Faster.

His horses fly across the ground, but it’s never fast enough. 

He gets the idea nothing will ever be fast enough.

He doesn’t stop riding—walking, trotting, swapping horses at a convenient town—until he’s back at the Gautier Mansion, and then he sleeps. Drops these newly traded horses off at the stables for Hugo to deal with, ignores Linus, ignores Ms. Adelaide, retreats to his room of darkness and piles of dirty sheets. Rips his stupid cape off and tosses it on the floor along with his stupid ornamental armor and collapses into bed. He burrows into the blankets and grasps for sleep and the reprieve it will give him, and sleep is generous to him and arrives quickly. 

He still feels the ache in his arms of someone not there.

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of sunrise. 

Sylvain is sore all over, which is not surprising. They won a war only yesterday. He sits up and groans as he stretches, and then glances around with sleepy eyes at the other soldiers sleeping in the hall, the couple of empty bedrolls. They’d commandeered this one hall in the Enbarr castle so to sleep within stone walls for the first time in weeks, but almost wordlessly, most of the soldiers had chosen to sleep in one room together. Sylvain had chosen to join them, along with some bottles of hard cider he’d rooted up. Well? Dimitri had asked him to make sure the troops were doing alright, and they were sure a lot better after a drink. 

It’s just barely light out now. He’s one of the first ones awake, which is a little surprising. Sylvain tends to always be the one running late in the mornings. Felix and Annette are the early birds of the group, and Dedue of course. 

Felix. Sylvain grins. All this pain and all this bloodshed, and all of it seems to disappear the moment he thinks of Felix because suddenly his mind has more important things to think about. He wants to _learn_ Felix in a way he hasn’t yet had a chance to, learn how to kiss him, how to make him moan, how to undo that brittle exterior and know what to whisper that will make him shiver, all those things that he’d thought of doing so many times during this entire campaign but was too scared to try until he really thought they might die. Because never having Felix at all was much preferable to scaring him off with Sylvain’s feelings, but it turns out Felix feels the same way and now? Well, now he can spend his time making sure Felix is intimately aware of everything Sylvain has wanted to do with him over these past months, hell, years even. Make him aware of how much Sylvain regrets that time pointlessly screwing around with girls and any time he wasn’t screwing around with Felix, to be frank, because that’s what he should have been doing the whole time. Oh, but he can make Felix so completely aware of just how far he’s willing to go to prove his devotion, be it kissing or gifts or embarrassing public serenades. So much to do, so little time. He’s looking forward to making a fool of himself for love.

Yup. It’s love. He’s faked it enough times to know the real thing.

He’d sort of lost sight of Felix after the battle yesterday, after Dimitri addressed him as the Duke Fraldarius for the first time and then dragged Sylvain off to talk peace accords, since easing tense situations is Sylvain’s sort of problem. He hadn’t seen Felix after that and feels a little bad about just crashing without looking for him like he promised, but Felix will definitely be up, off training somewhere, so Sylvain can just find him now. He wonders how far Felix will accidentally chuck his training sword if Sylvain just screams “I love you!” from the nearest window. Really far, probably. 

He yanks his shirt off the floor and frowns when something dinks against the stone. He drops his shirt back onto his bedroll and leans down to pick up the object, shiny in the sun just appearing through the windows. He recognizes the Crest on the ring immediately. The Fraldarius Crest. This is Felix’s ring, the one he’s been carting around in his pouch since Gilbert solemnly passed it on to him from Rodrigue. Why the hell is it here?

Sylvain’s stomach lurches a little. He grabs his shirt and his boots and runs from the hall, shirt undone and boots falling off his feet with loose laces. The ring is clenched tight in his hand, the sharp corners of the Crest symbol cutting into his palm. Where’s the training grounds for this palace? He needs to find Felix. He needs to find Felix now. 

He grabs the shoulders of every single passerby. “Do you know where the training grounds are?” “Where are the training grounds?” “The training grounds?” “Training grounds?” 

Eventually a soldier is able to point him in the right direction. Sylvain dashes through the palace until he reaches the heavy wooden doors. He rams into them at high speed and bursts through the doors, stumbling but smiling, looking around for where Felix will inevitably be giving him an irritated look for interrupting him. And he’s not there. 

Felix isn’t anywhere. Sylvain runs through the hallways, the rooms, walks in on Byleth and Dimitri kissing gently (whoops), and then starts circling outside and searching the streets surrounding the castle, calling Felix’s name until his voice goes hoarse. Eventually, or maybe it’s just minutes—he’s not the best judge of time right now—Mercedes comes out in her robe and grabs hold of his arm before he can dash off again. “Sylvain? Let’s calm down a little before we all help you look for Felix, okay?”

“But he could be hurt!” Sylvain protests, even as she starts doing up his shirt buttons for him. “What if something happened to him? I didn’t see him last night, so what if—”

“I saw him last night.” Ashe has such a quiet demeanor Sylvain hadn’t noticed him approaching. “He was looking out the window. I said goodnight and he waved.” Ashe smiles. “So he’s alright!”

Mercedes begins leading Sylvain back to the castle. “See? Felix is fine. But you know he likes to be alone sometimes. So why don’t we have something to eat and maybe some tea and then if Felix hasn’t shown up in a few hours, then we’ll all look for him together.”

An hour passes. Then two. Dimitri is caught up in meetings with the surviving Empire nobility and senior staff. Mercedes, Ashe, and Annette all help Sylvain search the palace again and then scatter through Enbarr, asking anyone for help locating Felix. Three hours. Noon passes. Felix doesn’t show up. 

A full day. A full day Sylvain searches for him, for Felix is nowhere to be seen. In the end, he sits slumped in the hallway outside the room where the diplomatic meeting is being held. When the doors finally open and people begin spilling out, Dedue spots Sylvain—probably as a tripping hazard for His Majesty—and comes to kneel at his side. 

“What is wrong?” he asks in his deep, warm voice that brings the promise of assistance right along with it. But then Dimitri and Byleth have exited the room, side by side. Dimitri joins Dedue on the ground. Sylvain’s throat aches from calling Felix’s name and it’s taking all he has not to start bawling right here in public. 

Because he did it, didn’t he? He let Felix know how he feels about him and it scared him away once he had the chance to think about it. Afterall, a promise of ‘forever’ with Sylvain would be enough to scare anyone off, wouldn’t it? The thought has Sylvain snorting with laughter, which makes his throat ache even more, and then the tears are running down his cheeks unchecked. He can hear Dedue and Dimitri calling his name and asking if he’s hurt anywhere. Byleth, with those seeking eyes of hers, simply walks forward and holds her hand out. Sylvain sniffles and takes his bloodied fist so he can drop the Fraldarius ring into her palm. He meets her gaze, and knows she understands just as well as he does what it means, why this whole day searching has been meaningless. 

Felix has left Sylvain the authority over the Fraldarius estate. Because Felix is gone, and he won’t be coming back.

* * *

* * *

_fact: i never said i needed you._

_i only ever call because i am lonely._

_or it is cold out. or i am lonely._

_fact: nothing about you stuck._

_fact: even if i remembered how forest fire bright_

_your eyes are, how flickering and wild,_

_(which i don’t)_

_i would not write about you._

-Alison Malee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jazz hands*


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, all things have to come to an end~  
> One more chapter to go after this!  
> (And then maybe a massive epilogue that totally got away from me from shhh let's not talk about that yet.)  
> Thank you so much for the response on the last chapter! You're all lovely.

* * *

**NOW**

* * *

The windowsill in the room isn’t broad enough to properly perch on and the glass gets in the way even more. Felix waits for the palace to quiet down before he slips out of Sylvain’s room and down one level to where he knows the windows open to the cool night air, no annoying glass. He used to sneak here as a squire. No one is about, and no one disturbs him as he hoists himself onto a stone windowsill, sighing at the soft kiss of wind in his face. He always used to do this, sit in windows. Not so much since he became a mercenary and lacked a castle to lurk in, but it had always been so comforting at Garreg Mach or the Fraldarius Castle. Escape to either side, but familiar steady stone holding him still. It probably says a lot about him that double avenues of escape is his first thought in finding a place to simply sit, but fuck it. He leans his head back and shuts his eyes. He knows he should feel sad at Sylvain’s departure, but he’s just empty instead. He’s just a husk of a person now. He’s poured out all his grief, his love, his rage. Empty, empty, empty. 

That’s what he deserves, probably. 

Footsteps from behind. Soft on the carpet and Felix hopes that they’ll disappear into one of the doors before his window, but instead they stop just short, and Felix sighs. He recognizes the tread, even muted by carpet. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Your Majesty?” 

He glances over his shoulder at Dimitri and lifts an eyebrow. His Majesty still wears the same stupid big ass cloak that makes his shoulders look so broad and also looks sort of dumb over nightclothes and slippers. He tilts his head at Felix, and his smile has gotten more confident, or at least from what Felix can see in the light of the lantern he holds.

“Can I not wish to say hello to an old friend, after so long apart?”

Felix sighs and hops off the windowsill. “Well, hello. There, you said it. We both did. May I continue to use your window or should I escort myself out?”

That more confident smile is also more annoying as well. Dimitri turns to the window next to Felix’s and inhales deeply. “A beautiful night.” 

“Yeah. Sure.” Felix takes up his place on the sill once more, but he sits facing Dimitri this time. He hates to be on his left, where the larger, sturdier eyepatch than he remembers keeps half of Dimitri’s emotions hidden. “How’d you know I was here?” 

“Dedue recognized your voice when I asked him to check on Sylvain.” Dimitri hums and his fingers tap against the stone wall. “I wasn’t completely sure until I saw you myself two minutes ago. It really _is_ good to see you, Felix.”

Smug bastard. Felix grunts and goes back to studying the sky. Lonely stars for eight years. And counting. Fuck, he hates himself right now. That was probably why the world sent him Dimitri. Divine punishment. 

“Do you have any particular reason to enjoy the beautiful night right exactly where you’re standing?” he gripes, and Dimitri laughs, shaking his head. 

“I’ve missed having someone routinely criticizing everything I do and may not do.”

Felix crosses his arms. “You don’t seem surprised to see me. I was under the impression everyone thought I was dead.” 

Dimitri shakes his head again, but slower. Felix will use his nods to read his emotions, instead of relying on eyes or brows. This simply isn’t as amused. It’s more pensive. “Byleth and I both knew you were alive,” he says. “And if I doubted it, she was quick to correct me. Because, you see, we were both waiting for you to come back. That was another thing my wife was very quick to correct me on, if I ever thought you might not.” 

Saints. “What, you two hedging bets or something?” 

“Simply awaiting the return of the Duke Fraldarius.” Dimitri turns to him then, and his remaining eye shines with city light. His mouth quirks up into a tentative smile. “So welcome back.” 

“I’m not the Duke Fraldarius,” Felix snaps, and wonders if the fall from the window would lead to two or just one broken leg. “Don’t start that.” He could still crawl away with two broken legs. 

Dimitri just hums. Bastard. “You are the Duke Fraldarius, no matter who you might leave your ring with. It’s something you carry in your blood. It’s something that reveals itself when you draw your sword. And it’s certainly in the way you look. You could surprise me for Glenn’s ghost if I didn’t expect you.” 

Felix hops down off the windowsill once more with a fury. Is shaking a finger at the king considered a threat? He’ll take his chances. “Five minutes, and you’re bringing up Glenn. Why? Why does everyone have to drag him up, over and over again?” As if he doesn’t do enough of that himself. But he has a _right_. 

Dimitri dips his head, smile vanished. “I’m sorry. I suppose I just want the years between us to melt away. I still remember clearly how very much in awe we both were of your brother. Do you remember the game we would play?” 

This is stupid. “What, hide and seek?”

“No, no.” Dimitri shuts his eye, as if pulling the memories up from the vaults of his mind. “It was with knights and robbers. I think you and I always demanded to be the knights, or the king and his best knight, whatever we felt like that day. King Dimitri and Lord Felix. And we’d boss Sylvain around into playing a robber or some other dastardly character who would always have some sort of treasure, and the game would end after the brave knights had defeated the robber and gained the treasure. He was a good sport about it, Sylvain was.” He opens his eye and beams at Felix. “Yes, that’s definitely how it went. Ingrid never really wanted to participate since she said it was unfair to Sylvain to have three on one but she didn’t want to be one of the bad guys.” 

Felix blinks. That...had happened. “Ingrid wasn’t bored or anything,” he mutters. “She asked Glenn and he gave her those books about Loog and she’d read them to us.” 

“Ah, yes.” Dimitri nods eagerly. “And then we’d pretend to be Loog and company, right?” 

Goddess, it’s humiliating just remembering. Felix grunts and turns a shoulder. Dimitri sighs and settles back against the windowsill. 

“We had a charmed childhood for that short time, didn’t we?” 

Yup.

Whoa, hey, backtrack. Maintain distance.

“If you say so, _Your Majesty_."

There. Distance maintained. 

Dimitri sighs like this is something he expected and Felix hates him for being...here. For acting like things are normal. They’re not normal and they never will be and he hates that false sweet taste in the air. He swings himself back up onto the windowsill for lack of better things to do, legs hanging out above the gardens. One jump and he’d never hear Dimitri’s voice again, one way or another. Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no…

“Would you like to take this to a more formal setting?” Dimitri asks tentatively, as if reading Felix’s mind. 

“What do we have to be formal about?” Felix asks lazily, scooting closer to the edge just for the thrill of it. “I’m not really here. They never saw my real papers at the gate. Hell, I lost my real papers years ago. Technically I’m an intruder and should probably be executed.”

“Not if you’re the Duke Fraldarius, which I can vouch for.” Dimitri is starting to sound a little peeved now. Heh. “Now, can we go to the conference room or library or something, please?” 

Felix leans back to look at Dimitri. He’s reached to pull his cape a little tighter around his shoulders and is shivering a bit. Cool air that smells of winter. Felix had always wondered if Dimitri’s health had ever fully recovered from being imprisoned. He wouldn’t have been the one to offer taking this conversation elsewhere, but now he’d feel like even more of an asshole for keeping Dimitri out in the cold now he’s asked to please go inside. And it would take a lot to make Felix feel like more of an asshole right now. His hair is loose around his shoulders, the ribbon that held it discarded on the floor of Sylvain’s room. 

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Lead the way. But not the conference room. Somewhere quiet.” 

Dimitri doesn’t lead him far. Just to a small room down the hallway with absolutely nothing in it except a few empty boxes and no windows. 

“What sort of bedroom is this?” Felix mutters. 

Dimitri shrugs. “It’s a closet.” 

Well, that was a stupid question. Felix covers his embarrassment by crossing his arms and strutting around the tiny space. “That’s a waste. An empty closet.” 

Dimitri kicks at one of the boxes lightly with a slippered foot and sets the lantern on the floor so the flame flickers across the walls.

“Well, Cornelia filled it with her junk and I don’t have anything else that needs storing. That is, unless you want a suitably covert space to hide when you sneak inside my palace.” 

Felix turns even more pink. Since when did Dimitri get the better of him in conversations? “Okay, so what the fuck did you want to talk about that required a closet?” He slumps against a wall and follows it all the way down until he’s sitting cross legged on the floor. 

Dimitri clears his throat delicately, adjusts his cloak a little, and says, “I want you to become the Duke Fraldarius.” 

Fairly easy guess, that one. “No.” 

“I could make it an order.” 

“We both know you won’t.” 

Dimitri’s shoulders slump a little. “No, I won’t.” A deep sigh. “I couldn’t.” His hands—ungloved for once, or maybe that’s a common thing now—come up to rub at his arms. He really did get chilly standing out there in the hallway. “Sylvain is gone now?” 

Felix doesn’t want to get into that. He just nods. 

“Does he want you to take the title?”

He scowls and plays with his hands in his lap. “I think mostly he never wants to see me again.” 

“I doubt that.” 

Oh shut up, Dimitri. Felix isn’t even sure how _he_ feels. How is he supposed to guess what Sylvain wants him to do? All he knows is that they both walked away from the final conversation frustrated and miserable. 

He hates being trapped in this stupid fucking closet. He needs the fresh air. 

Dimitri leans against the wall on the opposite side. He doesn’t look much like a king. Not stern enough in the face. He looks lost, like he so often did back then. Felix wonders if he still looks the same as Dimitri remembers. “What do I have to do to convince you?” Dimitri says at last. “To become the duke, I mean?” 

Felix is far, far too tired to do this again. Not twice in one night. It will hurt a lot less to tell _Dimitri_ to fuck off because he’s not doing it, but it still might hurt a little. “Nothing,” he says, voice as flat and devoid of human emotion as he can manage. “I won’t become the Duke Fraldarius.”

“Do you…” Dimitri pauses and sighs, and then scuffs the floor with his slipper. “Do you really hate me that much?”

Huh?

“Huh?” Felix blinks up at Dimitri, who stares back at him looking so uncomfortable and unhappy Felix might as well have just slapped him in the face. 

“That is it, right?” Dimitri keeps scuffing at the carpet. “You didn’t want to serve me as king. And I understand. But I want you to know I won’t try to interfere! You can serve me as little as you like, I simply want you to come take the title because...because I need you and I know you don’t owe me any favors but…”

“You think I left because _I didn’t want to serve you_?” Felix groans and bonks his head back against the wall. Saints, he probably should have left a note after all. You left because you didn’t want to serve me. You left because you didn’t want to be with me. If he goes and finds Mercedes, she probably blames herself for baking too many sweets. “That wasn’t it, you imbecile.” The shameful secret of hours before is now just an exhausted admission. Besides, leaving Dimitri amid his five thousand other advisors isn’t as shameful as abandoning Sylvain. “I was just...worried I’d let you all down.” He shuts his eyes so he can’t see Dimitri’s expression, but the sound of scuffing has stopped. “I couldn’t be my father and that...made me think it was better if I didn’t try. Because then I couldn’t fail.” His fingers search the hem of his shirt, searching for stray threads to tug on. None. Such a nice new shirt, custom fit. 

Dimitri clears his throat again. “I wasn’t the reason you left?”

“Dimitri,” Felix says as patiently as he thinks he can manage, opening one eye. “You think I would have risked my life and the lives of those I care about in order to put a _king I couldn’t serve_ on the fucking throne? I’m not just some stupid beast who’d take part in a war he didn’t believe in for the sake of a few good fights.” Okay, that wasn’t very patient. But Dimitri lets out a huge relieved breath and slowly slides down the wall to collapse in a mess of too-long limbs and way too much fluffy cape. 

“Oh thank the Goddess,” he breathes, and his fingers tug at his ponytail when he runs them through his hair. “I really thought that was it.” Felix opens both eyes so he can roll them properly. He isn’t expecting Dimitri’s breathless little laugh. “But... _that_ was why you left?”

“It isn’t funny!” Felix snaps and Dimitri stops laughing. 

“Of course it isn’t. I simply…” He bites at his lip and turns to look at the lantern, beside him on the floor. “You are so like your brother.”

“I thought I said to leave him—!”

“Glenn told me the exact same thing once,” Dimitri says softly, expression fond. It takes a moment for the words to register. 

Felix swallows hard and stops trying to pick apart his clothes. “What?” 

Dimitri smiles, almost shyly. “Glenn said the same thing to me. One night, when there was thunder and I was frightened, he said everyone was afraid of something so I shouldn’t be embarrassed. I remember the conversation quite well.” His smile grows more somber, almost slips from his face. “I asked what he was afraid of and he told me that he was afraid of failing.” 

Felix shakes his head, and his voice breaks from the subdued tone he’s carefully kept it in, rising in anger. Dimitri is a liar. “Glenn never failed. He never failed anything in his life! He was ready to be duke. He died protecting you! Why would he be afraid?” He pushes himself to his feet so, for once, he looms over Dimitri, but Dimitri doesn’t bother to move at all. Like Felix isn’t a threat. He’s right of course, and Felix just shakes his head after a minute and repeats in a croak, “Why would he be afraid?” 

Dimitri hums. “I think he was most afraid of failing you. _Someday the day will come that Felix will look at me with disappointment and I don’t know how I will handle it._ Or something very close to that.” He reaches out and flicks the lantern with a single finger. The fire dances in its glass cage. 

“That’s not true.” Felix’s hands clench at his sides. “Glenn would never disappoint me. Ever.”

“Even if he failed?” 

“Never!” Felix insists, and is unprepared for when Dimitri turns to face him, face soft and vulnerable, exactly what a king can’t be. 

“So why is it I know you will argue when I say that you could never disappoint me, even if you were to fail?”

Felix opens his mouth, decides Dimitri has tricked him enough for the moment, and shuts it. Because Glenn was family, his brother, his idol, and his cherished one. He is not that to Dimitri. 

Dimitri reaches to pull his cloak a little tighter around his shoulders. His hands are still shaking a little from the cold. The man should be in front of a fire, not cooped up in a closet. “I took your family from you,” Dimitri admits after a long pause. “First Glenn, and then your father probably spent more time trying to raise me than looking after you. Than making you his new heir. Preparing you to be a duke.”

Felix shrugs one shoulder. “To be fair, when he did try, I wasn’t exactly cooperative. And I can’t begrudge a child for needing my father’s time.” 

“But then I took him from you all over again.”

“My father could have just let you be stabbed. Would your martyr complex calm down if that’s how things had happened?”

“Felix, you have such an odd and often contradictory way of looking at things that sometimes I just don’t know how to respond.” 

There’s either a compliment hidden in that insult or an insult hidden in that compliment. Felix decides not to reply. 

“You would never have disappointed me,” Dimitri murmurs, and flicks the lantern again. “None of us knew what we were really doing. I didn’t expect you to be your father. I never expected you to be Glenn. No one has ever expected you to step into Glenn’s shoes, Felix.”

“I know that!” Felix tries to start pacing, but it’s difficult in a closet. “Look, it’s not like I just...stopped caring! I’ve been working for you, just as a mercenary, that’s all! That’s what I’m best suited for!”

Dimitri scoffs. The sound actually surprises the hell out of Felix. He’s never heard Dimitri scoff before. “That’s all you’ve ever tried to be! Maybe you’d be a better lord than your father. Maybe better than Glenn could have been! Honestly, Felix...if you need an example, we found Byleth working as a mercenary who didn’t even know her own age and now she’s the Archbishop! And a queen!” 

“And how’s the process of a royal heir coming along?” Felix asks sweetly because he’s an asshole and really wants to put a stop to their other conversation. As expected, Dimitri goes red and begins to splutter. Felix can’t help it. He covers his mouth but the laugh still escapes, and then Dimitri glares at him before crossing his arms. 

“And then sometimes I don’t miss you at all.” He shakes his head vigorously. “No, I won’t let you distract me.” He breathes out slow, cheeks deflating. Felix begins to pace again, three long strides back and forth. “Alright, I’ll be truthful. Ashe sent a letter back with Dedue tonight. I know you’ve been working as a mercenary ever since you left—”

Ashe. You traitor.

“—and I owe you a debt for that. But there are ways you would affect more lives, bring me a perspective only a man who’s travelled the continent for eight years can bring.”

Felix spins on his heel and leans against the door. “I’m not becoming your duke, Dimitri.” Still, he sighs. “I can be your mercenary. If you missed me dreadfully much.” He doubts it. “I can report in so many moons, give you that ‘perspective’ you want so much. Hell, we can have dinner sometimes, if that’s what you really want. Then everyone would know I’m not dead and you’d have me right under your thumb, because I don’t actually think you’re a shit king. Sound fair?”

Dimitri chuckles. “Not actually a shit king. Good to know. But…” He grimaces and turns back to the lantern like a lovestruck moth. “I would ask that for myself and be happy. Because I truly have missed you. But...this isn’t about me. I didn’t really come to talk about me. I came to talk about Sylvain.” 

No. Felix doesn’t want to talk about Sylvain. Not now. Too fresh. Too open raw and bleeding. “I’m leaving,” he announces, and sets his hand on the doorknob. 

“Felix, wait!” Dimitri actually lunges across the floor and snares one of his huge hands in Felix’s cloak. “Please, just...give me five minutes.”

His Royal Majesty King Dimitri grovelling at his feet doesn’t amuse Felix as much as it should. Felix grinds his teeth together and takes his hand off the knob so he wrench his cloak free. With Dimitri’s strength, he’ll probably rip it. “Fine. Five minutes. What about Sylvain?”

Dimitri sighs with relief and sits back upright. He glances around. “You know, maybe we should take the rest of this conversation out of the closet.”

Felix just groans and tells Dimitri he’s deducting this from the five minutes. Dimitri gives him a Look and leads them out of the closet, down a deserted flight of stairs, and to a small library with a fire and a couple of chairs. Felix raises a brow at the roaring fire. “I assume Dedue is ghosting around us, lighting fireplaces and generally making sure I don’t kill you?” 

Dimitri nods and settles in the chair closest to the fireplace. “You assume correctly. But that’s beside the point.” He sets an elbow on one arm of the chair and props his chin in his hand as Felix sits beside him. “Felix. I meant it. You could be my mercenary and I would be happy knowing you’re alive and doing work that benefits my citizens. But for Sylvain’s sake, I ask you to become the Duke Fraldarius. It is too large a territory for one person to control alone, but he will never accept help, because it was what you left for him.” 

Felix thinks back to the set of Sylvain’s shoulders as he’d walked out that door. “I don’t think Sylvain cares what I left him anymore.” 

“Then watch him struggle for the rest of his life,” Dimitri tells him bluntly. “I’m not sure what went on between you two and I don’t know why Sylvain left the palace like he was escaping death, but Sylvain _will_ continue to take care of the land you left him. He’s completely devoted himself to it for eight years now. And it’s taken its toll.” Dimitri frowns and turns his head to watch the fire. “He barely laughs anymore.” 

Not true, Felix wants to argue. He laughed plenty when he was with me. But he stays silent. Lets Dimitri continue. 

“And he thinks I don’t know but I know about the panic. It’s happening more and more often now. Since when did our Sylvain feel panicked in a room full of people? Since when couldn’t he talk his way out of anything? But instead I grant him short recesses so he can run off and hide and try to stay in control and there’s nothing more I can do to help, but he thinks he’s kept it a secret. And when he’s not here, he escapes to a mansion up north that is nothing but memories of a terrible father and a brother who tried to kill him.” He looks back to Felix then and seems so completely devastated that Felix doesn’t know what to do to respond. “I’ve been watching him fall apart for eight years now, and I don’t know how much longer it will be before he breaks.”

I think I broke him tonight. But Felix doesn’t say that. Can’t say that. Can’t tell Dimitri about the piles and piles of papers and ink-stained sleeves and lonely stars. About how Sylvain’s life is about sitting down in the morning, working himself on treatises and potato farming until he’s dead on his feet, and then collapsing into bed.

At least, until he started collapsing into Felix’s bed. Things had started getting better after that. Maybe a lot of...a lot of things had gotten better for Sylvain when Felix was there. And then he tore it all away again. Does he laugh often when Felix isn’t there to hear it?

He doesn’t want to think about it. 

“So dissolve Fraldarius lands,” Felix grumps, and crosses his arms and legs to study the bookshelves surrounding them. “Take some of the pressure off.”

Dimitri gives a small grunt of dissatisfaction. “I can’t dissolve Fraldarius lands yet. You know that. It’s too large a territory and the Fraldarius family has been too important for too long. Suddenly making it part of the Commonwealth would destabilize every other territory we’ve acquired.”

Which is true. Felix just hadn’t been able to think of other options. He groans and sinks back into the seat cushion. Waits for it. 

And Dimitri says it again, soft and plaintive. “Become my Duke Fraldarius, Felix, and protect your people as a ruler. Not a sellsword.” 

Felix pushes himself as far back into the cushions as he can go. “I’d be an awful politician.” 

He can hear the shrug in Dimitri’s voice. “Maybe not. You’ve always thought outside the box. I could use someone rattling my meetings, insulting diplomats, calling out other nobles when I can’t do so myself .”

“Do they really get on your nerves that much?”

“You have no idea.” 

Felix thinks back to their school days. Actually, he thinks he has an idea. 

“And Sylvain needs you,” Dimitri declares, while Felix is still enjoying the idea of insulting Gloucester and actually having the king’s secret approval. “We all knew that...something was going on between you two, during the war, but it became obvious just how much he needed you, just how much he still does, when you suddenly weren’t there.” 

“I don’t want to discuss my personal life with His Majesty, thanks,” Felix growls from the depths of the cushions. Sylvain doesn’t want to see him again. Dimitri should stop meddling before he loses another eye. “And that’s beside the point: I don’t know how to be a duke. Especially the Duke Fraldarius. If it was some backwater province, then sure, maybe. But...the Duke Fraldarius is…” He shuts his eyes and focuses on the feel of the fire on his feet. “I’m not a leader. You know that. I never even had a battalion. Never even had a group of twenty soldiers following me around. My father? Sure. But you know that Byleth always wanted me to operate alone. Because that’s what I’m good at. Being alone. And now you want me to take care of an entire dukedom full of people? What if they die? What if there’s a famine or an earthquake and I don’t know what to do? I can’t lead these people, Dimitri.”

“You think I thought any different becoming king?”

Felix opens his eyes and leans over the arm of the chair so he can glare at Dimitri proper. “But no one else could become king. Other people can be the Duke Fraldarius. And if Sylvain can’t handle two territories at once, appoint someone else. You must have some nobles lying around unused.”

Dimitri copies his position and glares right back at him. “The Fraldarius and Blaiddyd lines have too much history of being allies. Having the true blood Fraldarius heir at my side during summits and conventions would grant everything I say that much more weight! Our ancestors have always stood side by side. Having you...not _there_ for some unknown reason undermines everything I say and it just makes others wonder why you’re absent, if you’re dead or secretly exiled or what have you. And…” His voice drops. “You and I may have had our bad times, but there was never an instance I didn’t trust you to have my back. I need you to know that, Felix. It was true back then, and it’s true now.” 

Felix leans further over the arm of the chair to the point he thinks it might topple over. “Yes, I had your back. As a swordsman. Which is what I can still do. Be your mercenary. Protect your people in my own way. But not as a duke. I’m sorry to disappoint, your kingliness.” 

And Dimitri smiles, just a hint of a beast still there in his teeth. “Didn’t I tell you that you could never disappoint me?”

Bastard. Felix narrows his eyes and leans back. “Even if I walk out of here and you never see me again?”

“Even then. I’ll be sad to see you go, of course, but you probably are a very good mercenary.”

“Don’t fucking patronize me.” 

Dimitri laughs, but it’s more fond than anything. He sits back properly in his chair. “What is it with you and the fact when anyone ever gives you a genuine compliment you assume it’s patronizing?”

Because it usually is. Felix raises an unamused brow. Dimitri gives him that Look again and shakes his head.

“You are one of my oldest friends and possibly the only person who has always seen me clearly, even when others wanted to ignore the signs. If I was actually patronizing you, you’d know it.” 

Felix stares him down for a minute, brow still raised, and then settles back in his chair. “Fine. I think I’ll find a handy wall to hop and you can never see me again.” His legs tense to stand.

Dimitri coughs hurriedly. “While I wouldn’t be disappointed, I’d still much rather you stay and become the Duke Fraldarius.” 

Saints, he knew that was going to come back around again. When will Dimitri leave it be? “I’m not my father!” he snaps, throwing himself back into the softness of the cushions. “I’m not your shield.” 

“Completely true,” Dimitri agrees immediately. “But I’m not asking for your father. I’m not asking for Glenn. I’m asking for Felix, who I know wasn’t ever taught how to do this, but I’ll never regret asking him to.” 

“You don’t know that.”

Dimitri just hums, drums his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Do you remember, right after we all came back together at Garreg Mach?”

Well, yeah. Obviously. 

“I wasn’t myself,” Dimitri continues, and then makes a small sound of discontent in his throat. “Or more that I was exactly who I was. Because you were right. We talked about it. I’d had that part of me inside for a long time, and you knew it. But…” He pauses for a long, long time and then sighs. “I know you watched over me Felix. I could always feel your eyes, even when you didn’t want me to know you were there.”

“Point being?” Felix snips. He just wants this conversation to end so he can jump a wall and get out of here. 

Dimitri stands, a great dark blue shadow against the fireplace. When he walks over to Felix’s chair, he almost takes up the whole world. 

“You waited for me to come back to you. Now I’m saying that it’s _your_ turn to come back to us.”

Felix sucks in breath and shuts his eyes tight against the sudden vision of Dimitri lurking in that broken cathedral, speaking to the dead. Of Felix watching over him, praying to a Goddess he never really believed in that Dimitri would come back.

“I’ll be wretched at it.” 

“If I can learn to be king, you can learn to be a duke. You were always bossy anyway.” 

Dimitri made a mistake, getting so close. It means he can’t avoid Felix’s kick. 

“You fucking deserved that,” Felix says with no small sense of satisfaction. 

Dimitri retreats to safety with a limp. “Yes, I probably did. But I also know you were the one who caught what Claude was trying to sneak past in the trade agreement. That wasn’t Sylvain’s handwriting on those papers. I could definitely use someone on my side who can catch things like that. And you do know that your name is practically legendary among the squires and knights here? Far too many soldiers came back from war with tales of the ‘shadow swordsman’ who came out of nowhere and saved their lives and it only got worse from there. I could probably spread the rumor you actually shapeshifted from a demonic wolf and back and they’d believe me.”

“Oh?” Ingrid hadn’t mentioned that. Felix grins. “Tell me more.” 

“Not unless you agree.”

His momentary elation evaporates. Felix swings so his legs rest over the arm of the chair, angled away from Dimitri. 

“Goddess, Felix,” Dimitri groans. “If not for your people, if not for me, then just think how much of a burden you’ll take from Sylvain. You can learn to be duke. And we’ll be there to teach you. We were all just learning from each other, back then. It was a mess. But, please, come back to us. We can come up with some strange story about where you’ve been so no one else has to know the truth.” He risks coming close again and a hand closes on Felix’s shoulder. “I need my right hand man, my Duke Fraldarius, to say what I cannot and see what I do not. You can mock me for being a fool of a king all you want and I won’t ever stop you, as long as you’re able to keep others from calling me a fool. I know your father and mine would have the oddest arguments sometimes about things like that.”

Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius, arguing with the king? Felix turns his head to look up at Dimitri with bemusement. “I can say whatever I like about you to your face with absolutely no consequences? That _is_ a perk.” 

Dimitri’s face breaks into a smile. “I thought you’d think so!” Felix rolls his eyes. His king is being a moron.

“I’m going to fuck it up.” 

Dimitri’s fingers tighten on his shoulder. “You will never disappoint me.” 

“Yeah? What about everyone else?” 

“If you mess up, just say you did it on purpose. That’s what you do already anyway.” Dimitri shrugs when Felix shoots him a baleful look. “And besides, if you’re in the Fraldarius Castle, it doesn’t take a few hours for us to exchange a message, and it’s a two day ride if necessary. One if you gallop. Anything you’re not sure of, I can help as much as you like.” He removes his hand with a pat. “I’m not asking you to become Duke Fraldarius overnight. It’s already been eight years. We can spend a few months learning politics before you announce yourself.”

Saints. Felix rubs a hand over his face as he swings his legs back around to the floor and stands. “You’re going to talk me into it, aren’t you? I can’t believe you’re going to talk me into it.”

“Did Sylvain try?”

“Not really. He respected my life choices.” Felix drops the hand from his face and stares Dimitri in the eye. “I’m not doing this for you.”

“I’m fully aware.”

It’s a bit of a lie though. A part of him is doing this for Dimitri, who is waiting for him to come back to him. A larger part is for Sylvain, to at least take some of the weight from his shoulders even if he destroyed everything else between them. 

And a little part of it is for himself. The part that never could have gone back to being a mercenary without the guilt festering away in his heart. The part that wants to be what people need him to be. The part that has been looking at Glenn’s back for far too long, trying to catch up. Maybe now he can grab that distant fluttering cape and finally walk side by side with his most persistent ghost, who never could have disappointed him. 

“Fine,” Felix says, and holds out a hand for Dimitri to shake, because like hell he’s going to bow. “Teach me how to be your Duke Fraldarius.”

***

“The Duke Fraldarius needs to be able to ride a horse. Even if it’s just ceremonial.”

Felix doesn’t stop hugging the horse’s neck, legs clenched so tight on either side he’s surprised he doesn’t crush the beast’s ribcage. “That is oppression. Oppression of the vertically disinclined.” 

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“The Duke Fraldarius declares horses to be oppressive, and suggests that we—if you make it start walking Ingrid, I really will kill you. This is just a really big horse, okay? Why are its feet so big?”

“It’s the breed.” Ingrid starts poking at him until he sits up with a huff. “Didn’t you want to finish your duke lessons by the end of this moon? You’ll be two years if you can’t learn to ride a horse.”

Felix thinks of frost covered windows and the sight of stars. “Fine. Fine, I’ll learn how to ride the horse.” 

Ingrid leads the horse in a walk around the pen and then a trot when Felix assures her he’s okay. “You’re thinking about Sylvain again,” she says softly while he practices mounting and dismounting without looking like an idiot. 

“It happens a lot,” Felix grunts, looking like an idiot as he tries to get his leg over the saddle. There’s no point hiding it anymore. Not from Ingrid. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell him? We can always send a message.”

Felix nods. He’s sure. He was too awful to Sylvain to write him a casual note saying that oh yeah, whoops, I decided to become a duke after all. He needs to say it in person, and he needs to know that that person will have what it takes to never walk away again. Never walk away, never disappear, never run in the night. Before he rides north, he needs to be Duke Felix Hugo Fraldarius, and Duke Felix Hugo Fraldarius is going to learn how to ride this horse if it kills him, which it might. Those hooves are huge. 

Ingrid tugs him away from the horse to take a drink and warm their hands up a little by sticking them under their arms. Winter has hit Fhirdiad full force, and they do this at night when the training arena is empty. “So, I heard a rumor about a certain swordsman who was able to transform into a wolf,” she starts, voice prompting, but Felix just grins. Success. He’d planted that seed a week ago while sparring. Ingrid sighs and mutters, “I hope Dimitri gives you a terrible title.”

Felix takes another long drink of water and wipes his mouth. “Did he give _you_ a title?”

Ingrid shakes her head. “No. He tried. Ashe and I said no. Because they really were all terrible suggestions. He told us to get back to him when we thought up titles we liked, but we haven’t done that yet and it’s been years.” She snorts. “It would be odd going up to the king and saying ‘hey, by the way, I want to be Ingrid the Indignant’ or something, wouldn’t it?” 

It punches a laugh out of Felix. “Ingrid the Indignant?”

“It was a joke Annette made once. We were out buying groceries and I was upset by the price of oranges. Oh shut up, it isn’t that funny.” 

“Sort of is. At least I’m the shadow wolf swordsman.” He stands and regards the horse, who regards him back, calm and almost bored. “You can laugh at me when I fall off, come on.”

He does fall off, and Ingrid laughs, because he did sort of deserve it.

Thank the Saints that he doesn’t spend more than two hours in the stables a day. A lot more time is spent shadowing his king, racing through the books he was given as fast as he can, and talking with Dimitri often late into the night about political matters he hadn’t picked up on by travelling around. On the days he shadows, he sticks close to Dedue so he’s not spotted by any of the people Dimitri actually meets with. Dedue is just how Felix remembered him. Quiet. Stern. Kind. Felix tries very hard to not be an ass to him. He’s still working up the courage to apologize for his younger self. In his spare time, Dedue works in the greenhouse and helps in the kitchen, and Felix automatically follows. He helps a little with the plants but stays well away from the food. He wouldn’t want to poison Dimitri after just becoming his duke. He likes the greenhouse though. It’s warm even in the winter, and the plants are unusual and brightly colored. Plants of Duscur, Dedue tells him.

Every day, he wonders how he’s going to explain things to Sylvain. What he needs to say. And every day, he tells himself that Sylvain does not owe him forgiveness. Not for eight years. He needs to be ready for that. But either way, he needs to go get that stupid Crest ring Sylvain rode off with. 

He doesn’t take to political etiquette, but no one really expected him to. Dimitri gets to the point he doesn’t think Felix will actually start wars and leaves it at that. He _does_ take to numbers and maps easily, and of course he’s used to combat. Finances are just another type of number, and Dimitri spends a day schooling him on the specifics of Fraldarius territory: its chief exports and imports, the amount of revenue generated by which crops, as well as dropping the not insignificant detail of his inheritance. 

“ _How_ much?” Felix splutters, and Dimitri repeats the sum. “I can’t believe the old man left me...why would he…? Shit, that’s a lot of money.” 

“I’m sure Rodrigue wanted to make sure you’d be alright financially if he passed away,” Dimitri explains softly. “It should be enough to fix up the castle and hire some guards if you’d like.” 

It could do a lot more than that. Felix stares at the paper that requires his signature. He’d had no clue his father had prepared any sort of inheritance. He knew it was a thing, in a conceptual way, but he hadn’t imagined that...his father...his father…

He hadn’t ever imagined his father thinking that much about him, honestly. 

Dimitri sits silently and studies his hands on the table, gloved in leather, so they can both pretend he doesn’t notice the way Felix sniffs and wipes his eyes to make certain they’re clear of tears before he signs his name on the line and passes the paper back to Dimitri. He is now significantly richer than two minutes ago. 

He thinks of an unmarked grave near Gronder Field and wonders, for the first time, what his last words to his father were. Silence was the sound they were so skilled at sharing with each other. The last time Felix told his father he loved him or something in that vein was probably before the Tragedy of Duscur and vice versa, although Felix knows that sometimes—often, maybe always—he had walked away before his father had the chance to say it in the years that followed. 

“I’m going to practice riding,” he says, and stands from the table before Dimitri can stop him. He’s able to lead the horse himself by now, and trots in a circle around the pen until the lump in his throat has passed. Why does he destroy every relationship he has with the people who love him? Is he just that stupid or is he one of those people who can’t be loved and who can’t love back, not properly? 

Dimitri asks Ingrid to fetch him, eventually. Felix can take a little satisfaction that his duke training has brought those two closer again, and he doesn’t argue when he sees her in the doorway. He’s sort of tired of trotting in circles but hadn’t had a good enough reason to stop until he sees her.

“You love just fine,” Ingrid scoffs when he asks, slipping the bridle off the horse’s head. The tack room is chilly as hell. “You just don’t say it much.” She grabs his hand when he reaches over to slide the saddle away. “You never really tell people you love them, but you _do_ things so we know anyway.”

“Do you think my father knew I loved him?” Felix reclaims his hand and tugs the saddle off. He’s securing it alongside the other saddles when Ingrid answers so he doesn’t see her expression. 

“You never saw the way your father looked at you when he knew you weren’t looking back.” 

She doesn’t say anything more on the subject. Felix resigns himself to the fact that might be the best answer he’ll ever get. 

The weeks pass quicker than he’d guessed at the beginning. He takes the horse—its name is Peaches, apparently—for a ride around palace grounds and survives. He knows each remaining noble family and which territories have joined the Commonwealth by heart. He knows which fork to use first at those stupid fancy dinners. He has an opinion on apple orchards and how to progress negotiations with Dagda. He’s memorized the information on Fraldarius lands backwards and forwards. If he can take care of his own territory, then maybe he really can do this noble thing, even on a slipshod education that’s crammed years worth of study into four weeks. He keeps forgetting what the formal title for a diplomat from Morfis is. Dimitri promises any help he can give. 

“Most of what I want from you is support,” he says in a comforting sort of way when Felix launches a book on the history of Duscur—he spent too much time as a kid pretending Duscur never existed after it took Glenn from him—across the room so hard it hits the wall and crumples to the floor in a mess of bent pages. “Your support, your experiences while travelling, your impressions of people and whether I can trust them. While I can admit that your father would have been...invaluable to me when I first took the throne, you’re the one I need now. Being a different sort of Duke Fraldarius than your father or Glenn would have been. A different Duke Fraldarius for a different kind of future.”

Felix grunts. He’s pretty sure Dimitri is just trying to make him feel better. 

Dimitri stretches his arms above his head and groans. “I’ll ride with you partway,” he announces. “I...ah...well, I’ll be headed to Garreg Mach for a few days.” 

Felix smirks and Dimitri goes bright pink, face probably hot enough to start a fire. “A truly religious pilgrimage I presume?” Felix asks innocently. “Nothing to do with that royal heir we were ta—” Dimitri kicks his chair and Felix flails backwards with a yelp. 

“You deserved that,” Dimitri says primly, and gathers up his papers to go to bed. “We leave at first light in two days.” 

That hardly gives him enough time to think about what to say to Sylvain. He almost caves then and asks Dimitri to fetch the ring for him but no, that would be another form of running away. No more running away. He’s sworn to his king to be his duke, and with that out of the way, there are a lot more important promises he wants to be able to make. 

Happiness, for one. I promise to make you happy. I swear it on my father’s unmarked grave and wherever the hell Glenn’s body was scattered, I will make it my life’s mission to make sure you are never lonely again. Maybe not those exact words. Bit grim.

The night before departure, Ingrid helps him pack his saddlebags with some changes of clothes—Dimitri had gotten a tailor to fix him up a few more casual outfits within a few days of their lessons beginning—as well as some hardy food and some of the books he hadn’t quite finished reading. Some bandages as well, in case he falls off Peaches. He appreciates the concern if not the lack of confidence. “Stop being so jittery,” Ingrid tells him with a peck to the cheek. “If Sylvain was going to abandon you, he would have done so a long time ago. Back when you were the moodiest teenager ever.” 

“You didn’t hear the things he said before he left,” Felix mutters, but obeys when she tells him to go take a bath. The royal baths are so much nicer than a tiny tub by the fire. Actual pools of both cold and warm water, with pumice and towels and a faint lavender scent in the air. It’s late enough that most of the knights and squires have left already, so Felix soaks until his fingers turn wrinkly. I promise you happiness. I promise you will never watch me walk away again. I promise I will never give _you_ reason to walk away again. I can’t promise to be a cheerful sort of person or a particularly pleasant one at that, because I don’t think that’s something I’m capable of anymore, but you liked me anyway despite that, right? Right? 

He undoes his hair from the messy braid winding down his back and washes it thoroughly. He’ll do it up the way Sylvain was so proud of before leaving in the morning. 

I promise to make you happy. I promise I won’t let you be lonely again. I promise to make you happy. I promise I won’t let you be lonely again…

The next morning, Dedue wakes him up way too fucking early. “His Majesty would like to leave within the hour,” he announces, and Felix sits up so fast their heads nearly collide. 

“Shit! Clothes, hair, oh Saints, my stupid hair…” 

Dedue stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “I regularly fix Her Majesty’s hair in the mornings when she is visiting. Would you like my assistance as well?” 

Felix turns to look at him with brows raised. “You’d do that?”

Dedue nods. 

“But I was awful to you!” 

Dedue nods again. “Yes. But you also saved my life on a regular basis, and me yours, so we must have always had some value for each other. And a few harsh words from a teenager are not enough to stop me from helping the Duke Fraldarius look a little less ridiculous in the mornings.” 

Felix settles back on the bed warily as Dedue fetches a brush. “Alright. Thank you.” He rubs at his eyes and then sighs. “I’m sorry I was so awful to you.” It’s easier to apologize when he’s still so tired. “You were never a dog. Or a cur. You were just loyal to someone I was so angry with. Um...if you don’t mind, it’s sort of...one braid here, and then small braids up here? Sort of like Petra used to wear her hair. And...and this ribbon.” He points to the blue ribbon that has sat on his bedside table for a month after being rescued from the floor. “That’s important.” He sounds so fussy. He _is_ being fussy. Oh Goddess, the transformation into a noble has begun. But Dedue’s hands are gentle and Felix gets to doze off for a few more minutes before getting squeezed on the shoulder and told to get dressed. 

He manages half an apple before going to join Dimitri at the stables. They’re keeping this a secret trip, so only two guards, plus Felix is gratified to know Dimitri hasn’t been slacking with the lance. He’s fairly confident that short of a full-on invasion they should be okay. It’s early enough in the morning that only Ashe and Ingrid are there to wave goodbye, and when they leave through the main gates, the city has yet to wake. Dimitri is dressed warm and expensive, but minus all the royal finery, so the few people up and about don’t really react to them. The roads are coated with a thin layer of snow that drifted down overnight, and their breath becomes flowers of smoky white curling into the winter air. Felix doesn’t feel like talking and Dimitri is quiet as well. They exit Fhirdiad and set off on the same road Sylvain had led him down from Fraldarius territory. They’ll split at the town with the inn, and Felix will continue north while Dimitri branches south to Garreg Mach. Saints, those two love each other, to make it work even when they both have so much else to do. But Dimitri hadn’t ever not had the biggest crush on their professor, so maybe it isn’t that surprising. 

The sun rises at some point, but the cloud cover keeps it hidden from sight. Felix huddles in his cloak and rubs his hands together, even with gloves. You’d think he’d be used to it, but so many of his jobs as a merc had been in the southern reaches of Fódlan. He might push today to reach that other inn by tonight instead of camping out like he’d planned. He pushes Peaches into a slightly faster pace, keeping in mind Ingrid’s lessons about his horse’s stamina, and Dimitri copies without a word. If the guards weren’t there then maybe Felix would strike up some conversation, but none of the guards or servants in the palace who had to interact with Felix had been told his identity, and after eight years it’s not like he was easily recognized. Felix knows how guards gossip, so he won’t risk giving anything away now. The Duke Fraldarius is meant to come back to Dimitri’s official announcement and no sooner. It makes everything...better. More intentional. Less like a hurried school project from Professor Hanneman left too late by a couple of harried childhood friends who can’t even understand the instructions. That’s a good comparison, he’ll need to remember it. But if Felix has the chance to occupy the Fraldarius Castle before the announcement, it’ll cement his place just a little bit firmer. Look! He’s a duke! He has a castle and a horse and a ring and everything! That’s all you really need, right? 

He is so out of his depth he doesn’t think even his worst enemies would laugh at his predicament. He can’t do this. He’d been telling the truth this whole time. But he’s going to do this anyway, because he’s an idiot and also because maybe it’s okay to give it up and be a bit (a lot) of a disappointment if it’s for a few special people who won’t care if he makes a fool of himself. Just suck it up and give up your stupid pride so you can trade it for more important things. 

He can see the town where they’ll part coming a while away, and Dimitri insists on buying lunch. Tea. He buys tea. Except for Felix, who is delighted by the bitter taste of the coffee and the cranberry biscuits. 

“I’ll see you back in Fhirdiad,” Dimitri says with a smile and clap to the shoulder once they’ve finished their meal. Completely confident that Felix is going to achieve his goal. Felix nods jerkily and waits so he can wave Dimitri and his guards off on the southern road. 

“Just you and me now, Peaches,” he addresses his horse, giving it a tentative pat on the neck. “Think we can reach the next town by night?” 

Goddess, he hates trotting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Watch out for the finale within the next two or three days! Probably two. Unless it's one. I like publishing endings. They're so fun.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been real, folks. ♥

Sylvain doesn’t exactly deal with his return from the capital as best he could. Well, it’s possible he could do better. There’s just a slight slackening of his work ethic and it might be worrying the staff just a little. 

Fine. He spends three days straight sleeping in his bed and hasn’t spent a lot of time out of it since then. That’s the truth. He exchanges a few messages with Ferdinand about the speech and hauls himself into the carriage to accompany the food shipment from Count Bergliez to ensure every town is given its fair share, but most of the time he sleeps. He takes blankets from the room next door and creates a nest that smells like _him_ and Sylvain misses _him_ so fucking much he feels sick to his stomach. He tries practicing with a wooden lance in his room, but his heart isn’t in it. He manages maybe two weeks of practicing daily before giving up on that. He sinks further. Time is just making it worse, giving him time to marinate.

Ms. Adelaide actually intervenes three weeks in, coming into his room with a meal as has become the new custom because otherwise he’d starve, but then she sits at the end of the bed and gives a little speech about heartbreak and how it will pass and how does Sylvain explain to her he’s had heartache for so long he’s sure it’s a scar? He’ll come out of his room when he thinks he can actually make it through a day again. He used up all his energy over the grain shipment, and even that was mostly sleeping in the carriage.

Felix was scared of disappointing everyone as a lord? Hah. Look at the great Margrave Gautier now. Felix always set way too high expectations for himself, that’s the problem. Stronger and stronger and stronger until he left everyone behind in the dust. Well, he can go out and kill beasts and bandits and rack up the bounty count and hopefully be happy with that. 

Things could have so easily been different. That’s the thought that keeps Sylvain bound to the blankets. If he had known which questions to ask. If he knew how to speak that Fraldarius language. If Felix knew how to communicate back. If maybe, in those odd nine years between Glenn’s death and his own, Rodrigue could have taken Felix aside, not for lessons or coaching or sparring, but simply to grab his shoulder and say, “I wasn’t always the perfect knight you see in me now.” Because looking forward into a future where everyone would need Felix to be Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius, would be, Sylvain can admit, completely terrifying. At least his own father was a piece of shit and Sylvain couldn’t really do worse. But between Glenn and Rodrigue, those were shoes no one could fill. Not at first. Maybe not ever. Maybe Felix would have just made his own damn shoes, but the point stands that the more Sylvain thinks about this, the more he can understand how the dread and anxiety must have taken over, how Felix would have looked at himself—never even led a battalion before—and foreseen only failure. So he left Sylvain his ring and ran. 

Goddess.

At some point, Dimitri is going to have to come drag him bodily out of bed and possibly make him shave, and then Sylvain will have a purpose again. He did this for Dimitri, after all, the whole noble thing. For Fódlan. He has a purpose too, no matter how murky it looks right now. He’ll be fine. 

Yeah. He’s been fine-ish every other time he’s lost Felix. This time will be no different. He’ll be a little bit more miserable, the heartache won’t ever properly heal, but it won’t ruin him as a person.

It’s just difficult knowing that this really was the last time. He has no hopes, however futile, that Felix will show up again. They’re done. That’s it. The end.

_I promise you won’t ever see me again._

Sylvain groans and thunks his face back into his pillow. If that whole ‘getting over it’ part could come along soon, that would be great. He bundles the blankets around himself and tries to fall back asleep, but Ms. Adelaide had opened his curtains today and the sun has made an annoying appearance through the clouds. It’s late afternoon, judging by the way everything is starting to be tinged orange. The clouds look heavy with snow. Sylvain has no idea what day it is. He should probably know that. 

A few blankets pulled over his head blocks out the light and the slight humiliation of not knowing what day it is. Sleep. Sleep is good. Sleep sounds like a wonderful idea right now, and when he wakes up, hopefully the clouds will cover the entire sky, and then he can sleep some more.

Someone calls him. 

Sylvain lifts his face from his pillows and pushes back the blankets, already exhausted again after two seconds of hearing Linus calling his name. Please, Linus, just make all the decisions yourself from now on. I appoint thee the Margrave Gautier, if you will just let me lie here and wallow in my miserable loneliness. I can give you the ring. Please, please, please don’t knock on the door. No, okay, you’re knocking. But don’t come in. Okay, come in, but don’t come near the bed. Let us both pretend I could still sleep through you calling right in my ear. “Sir! Sir! Sir!”

“What?” Sylvain grumps, pushing his hair from his eyes as he sits up. 

Linus bounces nervously where he stands. He’s so tidy and looks so out of place in the sty that is Sylvain’s room now. Sylvain feels slightly embarrassed over it. Hasn’t he always preferred to keep a clean room? When did that change?

“Sorry?” he asks, when he misses what Linus says the first time. 

“Er...well, he’s at the front door, sir.”

“What?” Sylvain stretches his arms above his head and yawns. “Who is?” He reconsiders his words. “Tell him to go away, whoever it is.” Probably that annoying priest from the village who doesn’t think Sylvain is devout enough. 

Linus has an expression like he might just die on the spot. “My lord, I think if I tried to tell Duke Fraldarius to leave, he would take it as a challenge to duel.”

Sylvain blinks and then rubs at his eyes. “Sorry, what?” 

“The Duke Fraldarius, sir!”

It takes a moment for Sylvain’s brain to engage. It takes an extra moment for his tongue to untie. “Felix is here?”

“The Duke Fraldarius, yes sir!” Linus is going to vibrate out of his skin in anxiety. 

Sylvain stares at his secretary numbly. What is he supposed to feel here? Felix wasn’t ever supposed to show up again. He’d promised. 

A tiny broil of anger starts in his stomach. What, does he need to break me just a little bit more? Saints almighty. Sylvain is tempted to hide back under his covers, but he’d regret that later, he knows. Plus it’s childish. And he doubts that Felix would leave anyway. Probably kick down the door. He stands and sighs, looking at Linus with pity and, he hopes, some apology in his expression. For everything. “Thank Linus. I’ll be down shortly.”

Which is code for a frantic change of clothes the minute Linus leaves the room. A shirt that isn’t creased like a year old apple? Check. Fresh trousers? Alright. He splashes some water in his face and combs his fingers through his hair. He catches tangles and rips at them savagely, muttering to himself. “Ouch. Ouch. Ouch, fuck, ow…” He doesn’t have time to shave. How long has it been? Ms. Adelaide guilted him into it a few days ago, right. So at least three days’ growth. Felix will just have to deal. Not like he has to kiss it anyway. 

Sylvain replays their final conversation in his head and the anger dies, replaced by guilt. Maybe Felix is waiting down there to punch Sylvain in the face. He probably deserves it. What a pair they are.

_Felix just makes everything about him and no one else matters at all!_

He hadn’t meant it. He’d just wanted to hurt. And Felix had wanted it. Had welcomed the pain.

_You can hit me. You can hit me if you want to, I don’t care about pain. I don’t._

Sylvain yanks on some boots and proceeds to leave his room very, very slowly. He can already hear Linus at the front door as he creeps down the hall and down the stairs, as well as the unmistakable sound of Felix talking with him—Goddess, Sylvain has missed his voice. As Sylvain takes a snail’s pace to the door, Linus ruins it by turning his head to the side and smiling. “My lord, there you are! I will give you privacy.” He retreats from the door and Sylvain has no choice but to take his place. And sure enough, it’s Felix standing there, in the fine clothes Sylvain had bought him. It’s like the past moon never happened, at least to him. He doesn’t look like he’s been wallowing in his abject misery. He looks really good actually, if a bit tired. A creamy colored horse stands sedately down at the bottom of the steps. 

A _horse_?

“You rode here?” Sylvain asks, flabbergasted, at the same time Felix blurts out, “The stars aren’t lonely, you twat.” 

They stare at each other. Felix’s cheeks turn pink. “That...ah...wasn’t actually the first thing I wanted to say. It’s about...the sixth thing. I was just...rehearsing in my head and that was…” He looks at his feet and then mumbles, “Yes, I rode here. That’s Peaches.”

Sylvain nods and scratches the back of his head. His astonishment over the horse has honestly taken precedence over any guilt or anger or any other emotion. “Ah. That’s...hello, Peaches.”

Felix shuffles his feet and lifts his gaze once more, jutting his chin out defiantly. “Alright, let me start at number one.” 

It’s getting sort of cold standing here in the doorway, but Sylvain doesn’t care. The way Felix shuffles his feet is so precise and careful and Sylvain has missed him _so fucking much_ he doesn’t care at all that Felix is technically breaking a promise. “Felix,” he manages, before Felix can begin going down his list, and it’s a testimony to how little he’s been talking to people that that word alone makes his throat ache for water. He swallows hard. “I don’t think you make the world revolve around you.”

Felix’s face loses its stubborn expression and his brows knit. “I know that.”

That’s not enough. Sylvain runs a hand through his hair and then takes a moment to rub his temples before fixing his eyes on the horse, who is easier to talk at, and continuing. “Goddess, Felix, it’s okay that you were scared, the more I think about it the more I wish you’d been able to talk to—”

“I’ve decided to become the Duke Fraldarius.” 

“—me, because you never should have felt you had to be your…” He stops staring at the horse and frowns at Felix, who bites at his lip under the attention. “Sorry, what was that?” 

“I…” Felix clears his throat and fiddles with a glove. “I’ve decided to become the Duke Fraldarius.” 

“Since when?”

“Since...about two hours after you left the palace.” 

Sylvain opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens. Closes. Opens. “ _Why_?” 

Again, the foot shuffle. The glove tug. “Will you get all mad again if I say it’s about Glenn? And you! But also Glenn.” 

Saints. Sylvain leans against the door and covers his eyes. “No, Goddess, Felix, that was...that was such an asshole thing to say. I’m sorry.”

Felix stares at him, brows still all scrunched with worry, and then he rubs at his arms and says, “It’s really damn cold out here, you know?” 

“Oh, yeah, let...come in, please.” 

What follows is the most awkward shuffle inside possibly ever. And then they just stand in the foyer, carefully not making eye contact. Felix removes his gloves and tucks them in a belt and then inhales deep. “I know that I can’t reverse what happened, and I can’t ever make up for the years that passed. That night in the palace, I...I wanted to feel…” He huffs. “It wasn’t for you. It was for me. I wanted you to hurt me so I could feel better, like things were more even. But that...wasn’t right. And now I’ve had time to think about it, the only thing I can do is apologize, which I’m bad at. But I’m sorry.” He keeps untucking his gloves and then tucking them in somewhere that is somehow better. “I’m sorry. And as for...as for leaving...the first time at least…” He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose before shaking his head and trying again. “Well, I hope you know I thought—think—the world of you, besides those short periods when I think you’re an idiot, and I just sort of assumed that...that you could handle it. And I didn’t have anything else to give you to remember me by. So I gave you my home.” He exhales and shuts his eyes, hands finally stopping the fiddling with the gloves. “I wasn’t really thinking that night and then it was done and I’d made my decision and I didn’t think there was any good way of reversing it. So I left you with too much to handle and no explanation and all I can say is I’m really, really, really…” He opens his eyes and stares up at Sylvain, snow slowly melting at his feet. “...really, really sorry, and that’s probably the most I’ve ever meant an apology in my life. You don’t have to accept it, but I thought that maybe I would...say it anyway.” He tilts his head to the side. “Real quick, could we ask Milo to bring Peaches around to the stables, because Ingrid will kill me if—”

Sylvain kisses him, chaste and gentle, one hand cupped beneath Felix’s chin. He’s not sure if it was the concern for the horse or the awkward apology or the way he keeps fiddling with his gloves. Sylvain just needs to kiss him. His skin is cool beneath Sylvain’s fingers, and Felix makes half-hearted little noises of protest without making any attempt to pull away. Sylvain is the one to break the kiss, and he doesn’t miss the way Felix tries to follow his lips before getting a hold of himself and straightening with a splutter. “T-that was only the second thing I needed to say!” 

Sylvain shrugs, acting like his stomach isn’t all warm and tingly inside, the first real bit of warmth he’s felt since he rode away that night. “Maybe that was me accepting your apology. That’s how they do it in some cultures.”

Felix composes himself a little and sniffs with distaste. “Your beard is scratchy.”

“Are you going to accept _my_ apology? For those things I said, because, Goddess, Felix, if I could rip out my tongue…”

_You think I wasn’t scared? You think I wasn’t terrified of becoming a lord? Because I was terrified, and hoping every single day that you’d be back because then at least I could be terrified with you. But no. You were scared._

“I still have things to say!” Felix insists, hands on hips. “Because Dimitri found me, right after you left, and he told me about...about you. About how much you’re struggling, and I never saw it. Well, I did, but I wanted to keep on pretending I did the right thing by leaving you the Fraldarius ring. But I actually did an awful thing and Dimitri…” He huffs. “Can we sit down somewhere? I’ve been riding for two days straight and my entire body hurts like hell.” 

“Oh, yeah! I guess the kitchen is alright…” 

The kitchen has been cleared out. Sylvain can see where Ms. Adelaide began preparing dinner, but everyone must have fled to safer territories upon Felix’s arrival. Except for Milo. He can hear the stableboy outside, probably settling Peaches in safe. Felix sits up on the table, unclipping his cloak. Sylvain grabs a stool and sits nearer the fire. It feels lovely against his back.

“You weren’t wrong,” Felix declares once he’s settled. “I do revolve a lot of things around Glenn. Too many. And he’s always been this unreachable perfection to me, the knight I will never be, the duke I could never become. But Dimitri told me something.” He smiles then, and it wobbles as he speaks. “That Glenn was also afraid of failing. Afraid of failing _me_. When all this time I’ve been trying to be better for him, he was once afraid that I would see him as a failure. Isn’t that ridiculous?” He sniffs and wipes a hand across his eyes. “So I thought maybe it would be okay to try this thing and fail, because the most important people that I was so scared of disappointing won’t care. Same as Glenn would never be a disappointment to me, maybe other people...could feel the same…”

“So you’ll be the Duke Fraldarius?” Sylvain shifts his stool a little closer. Felix nods. 

“I’ve spent this last wretched moon trying to learn as much as I can before Dimitri announces my claim. Unless you feel like fighting me for it, of course.” He grins. Sylvain laughs. 

“Please, take it.”

“I will.” Felix shuffles upon the table and begins fiddling with his sword belt now. He really is nervous. “So, the next thing I want to say is…” It’s hard to tell by the firelight, but Sylvain is pretty sure he’s blushing.

Sylvain cocks his head to the side, gesturing. “Felix, we had sex...right _there_. In a tub. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about anymore.”

Felix stops fiddling and rolls his eyes, arms spread in defeat. “Fine. I love you. Happy? I don’t think I ever told you properly, so I love you. And you don’t have to accept that either but— _no, your beard is_ —!” Sylvain’s stool goes rattling across the stone floor. He kisses Felix hard and hungry this time, scratchy beard and all. “I love you back,” he whispers when Felix tries to escape his beard, and Felix sort of melts and kisses back, sultry and lazy and _holy shit he loves me._ And Sylvain loves him and this time it doesn’t have to hurt. Sylvain would push Felix all the way back onto the table and have his way with him, but maybe that would be a bit unhygienic. He settles for kissing down Felix’s neck just the way he likes, pulling his collar aside, and drinking in the soft moans. 

“Still itchy,” Felix complains at last, and returns a few more kisses before grabbing Sylvain’s shoulders and holding him at arm’s length. “And I have more things to say.”

Bossy. 

Felix takes in a few steadying breaths and then frowns and nods to himself. “Actually, I think I’ve reached the part about stars.” He shoots Sylvain a very unimpressed look. “The stars aren’t lonely. How can they be, when there’s so many of them? Millions, apparently.” He snorts. “And when you’re in the city and the lights make it so you can’t even see the stars? They’re still there, behind the lights, and just as lonely, if that’s what you think they are. You just cover them with lights so you can’t see the loneliness, but that only works for so long, right?”

Damn it, he’s been trapped in a metaphor. Sylvain preferred the kissing. “Maybe.”

Felix nods curtly. “But did the stars ever look lonely when we were at Garreg Mach together? No, I bet not. When we were on the campaign trail? No. Hell, when we were kids together staying up late and staring out the window, were the stars lonely? No. The stars only became lonely when you went and trapped yourself up here, in this awful mansion full of awful memories.” He huffs and holds out a hand. “Give me my ring.” 

Sylvain gapes. “What?” He just got lectured about stars in some extended metaphor (he thinks). He’s allowed to be a little out of it. 

“The ring with the Fraldarius Crest.” Felix lifts an imperious brow, but his boot starts tapping ever so slightly. Nervous again.

“It’s upstairs,” Sylvain finally answers. 

“I’ll wait,” Felix snaps in the least patient way imaginable. Really nervous. Sylvain races to the spiral kitchen staircase and bangs his knee hard on a stone step trying to reach the upstairs as fast as he can. He dashes to his bedroom, where he opens the box containing the Crest rings. He grabs both, just in case, shoves his own ring into his pocket, and then runs back to the stairs as fast as he can. Felix is still there, arms crossed defensively across his body and foot tapping like mad. He holds out his hand as Sylvain skids to a stop in front of him, and then stares at the ring, the one taken off his dead father, the one he’d left in Sylvain’s pocket, eight long years ago. 

“You said you love me?” he asks, voice a throaty whisper. 

Sylvain nods, trying to catch his breath. Goddess, is he out of shape. 

“Like a forever sort of thing?”

“Like a...forever sort of...forever sort of thing,” Sylvain puffs. 

Felix nods and then lifts his gaze to look into Sylvain’s eyes, mouth parted and eyes vulnerable. “Give me your hand,” he rasps, and when Sylvain obeys, he drops the Fraldarius Crest ring right back into his palm. 

Mark down Sylvain as confused. “I thought _you_ were going to be the Duke Fraldarius.” 

“I am. But I still also don’t have anything else to give you.” Felix nibbles at his lip. “You once told me this ring would always bring me home. But I am with you. Home, that is.” He reaches out and squeezes Sylvain’s hand lightly. “And I can’t be the Duke Fraldarius alone. I need Dimitri’s help, and Ingrid and Ashe and Dedue, but mostly I need you. To be...I want to be the one who could never disappoint you.” He shuts his eyes and sighs, all the tension seeming to leave his body at once. “I want to do this _with_ you. The Fraldarius-Gautier Alliance. Dimitri will approve it. I already asked. And I promise that if...if you let me stay by your side, the stars will never seem lonely, because I’ll never walk away again, and I will never let you feel lonely.” He opens one eye tentatively. “And I’m stupidly in love with you. Just to...say that part again.”

The Fraldarius-Gautier Alliance? 

That does sound like a forever sort of thing. 

It might even sound like a happy ending. 

Sylvain reaches slowly into his pocket and grabs the Gautier Crest ring. It gleams in the firelight like molten gold. Felix opens both eyes to give him a truly confused expression, and Sylvain smiles as he takes one of Felix’s hands and opens it slowly, like a flower, finger by finger, adds a kiss to each for good measure, and then presses his ring into Felix’s palm. “You know,” he says, as casually as he’s able. “Alliances are traditionally sealed with marriage. And since I am stupidly in love with you too…”

“Marriage?” Felix squeaks. 

Sylvain nods. “I mean, you don’t have to say yes, but the option is there.” 

Felix frowns, eyes trapped on the Gautier ring in his hand, the way Sylvain’s fingers still hold his own. He places his other hand on top, sandwiching Sylvain’s in between, and presses down, just for a second. But Sylvain knows Felix by now, knows how to read him. He can recognize an agreement when he sees it. He feels the smile begin to split his face and Felix doesn’t complain once about the beard when they kiss. 

“I want to move down to the Fraldarius Castle,” Felix says at last in a mumble as Sylvain kisses the hollow behind his ear. “It’s more central and much more practical.” 

“In that case, I want a big grand wedding where we invite everyone we ever knew,” Sylvain counters, and kisses back to Felix’s mouth. But Felix pulls him away by his collar. And grins up at him. 

“We will hire a personal guard of at least twenty men at the castle at all times. I want to get some decent sparring in.” 

“Even Hubert.” Sylvain is just going to run with this. “I want to rub the fact I’m getting married into von Vestra’s face.” 

“He tries to curse you one time and you hold onto it forever.”

“Like _you_ can say anything about holding grudges.” 

Felix makes an exasperated noise. “You have to train in the lance again. Until you can protect yourself.”

“You have to announce in front of _everyone_ that you love me.” 

“Sylvain…”

“ _And_ you have to stand there and listen to my vows, which I swear upon this...fine wooden table to make as sappy and ridiculously embarrassing as possible.” 

“Saints, Gautier, you’re lucky you’re cute,” Felix grumps. 

“I might even include _charming childhood stories_ …”

“I still haven’t officially agreed to the marriage thing, you know.”

“But you love me.” The word tastes sort of strange on his tongue after avoiding it so long. He’ll just have to say it a lot. “You love me,” he teases. “You love me, like _love_ love me.” 

Felix sighs in content and wraps his arms around Sylvain’s neck, drawing him back in close. “I love you, and I’ll marry you, providing you can love a coward like me who ran away from his responsibilities for nearly a decade and knows absolutely nothing about being married or being a lord, and is…” He makes a face. “A bit... _confrontational_ at times…”

“Mmm,” Sylvain hums with a laugh. “I think I can love you anyway.” Felix nods tersely. “I love you anyway,” Sylvain whispers, like it’s a secret. 

“Oh good,” Felix whispers back, obviously fighting a smile. He’s losing.

Sylvain leans out of reach just as Felix raises himself for a kiss. “Provided you can love an incorrigible scoundrel like me who breaks hearts and ruins every relationship he’s ever been in and also knows nothing about being married and can’t even shave himself properly.”

Felix unthreads his arms so his hands can wrap in Sylvain’s shirt once more. “I’ve been in love with you since I was thirteen, you half-wit. You think I’m giving you up after all that?” He pats Sylvain’s cheek. “But I do feel like I’m rubbing my face on a porcupine.”

“I can go shave.” Be rid of the beard of misery. 

“Yeah, but then you’ll be all bloody.”

“Someone’s picky.” Sylvain stands up straight to go shave anyway. “Ms. Adelaide is around here somewhere. Can you chop vegetables or something maybe? I think we delayed dinner preparations.”

“Are you going to shave?”

“I’m going to shave.” And try to make his room look less like a den of depair. He kisses Felix on the temple. A hand snags his sleeve before he can walk away. 

“Wait! I think we have to do this.” Felix smiles and takes the Fraldarius ring from Sylvain’s grip, only to slide it carefully onto his ring finger. It catches a bit at the knuckle, but otherwise goes on smooth. He beams up at Sylvain like a kid who just caught his first firefly, and Sylvain loves him so damn much it should be impossible. He hums softly to himself as he admires the ring that he’d always hated to wear up until now, and then takes the Gautier ring that Felix readily offers. He kisses Felix’s fingers again, because he’s discovered he really likes that, and then holds the ring so it catches the light once more. 

“You know, this particular ring wasn’t ever enchanted, but it sure feels like it right now.” 

“Just promise to marry me, Gautier.” 

“As the Duke Fraldarius commands.” Sylvain slides the ring onto Felix’s sword-calloused finger. 

It fits like a dream. 

Maybe the ring really was enchanted to fit Felix’s finger. 

Or maybe Sylvain doesn’t need stories to make the world a better place anymore. 

* * *

**THEN**

* * *

He dreams of cold feet, because Felix always seems to have cold feet and no interest in wearing socks or slippers to remedy that situation. Sylvain is pretty sure it’s because cold feet can be used as a weapon. But not tonight. Felix simply squirms his way into bed beside Sylvain and tosses an arm across his chest. Sylvain turns into the hold and tucks Felix’s head beneath his chin. This is not something he can do with Ingrid or Dimitri. This is something for him and Felix alone. He likes it, feeling like there’s someone he needs to protect, to hold close, to be a better big brother for than Miklan is to him. Of course, Felix already has Glenn so Sylvain isn’t quite sure what Felix gets out of this, but he’s not complaining. He feels so warm everywhere Felix is pressed against him, even with his cold little feet. 

“What’s wrong?” Sylvain asks at last when Felix doesn’t volunteer the information. Usually when Felix comes running to him he’s able to say right away why he’s there: it’s thundering outside, his father is angry with him, he misses his mother. But Felix just shakes his head and buries his face in Sylvain’s chest. “Felix,” Sylvain says a little firmer. “What’s wrong?” 

Felix whines a little—he’s three years younger after all, Sylvain can allow him some immaturity— and his hands clutched in Sylvain’s sleep clothes grow tighter. “I don’t want you to leave.”

Ah, yes. Returning to the Gautier estate. He leaves in three days. Sylvain should have guessed that was the problem. He doesn’t want to leave either, but making Felix aware of just how wary he is of going back to his father, his _brother_ who tried to kill him, is not something he meant to do. He can handle it. He needs to be able to handle it. 

Alone. 

He ruffles Felix’s hair. “You know I’ll see you again soon, right? I’ll bring you some ginger cookies.” 

Felix does perk up a little at that, but then shakes his head, determined not to be distracted. “I don’t need cookies. I want to come with you.” 

Sylvain props himself up on one arm, staring at Felix in the starlight. His little face is all screwed up in determination. “Why?” Sylvain asks, a little hopelessly. The Fraldarius Castle is much, much better than his mansion. Better for playing, closer to Dimitri and Ingrid, and nobody here seems to care about his Crest, because even if they do, Glenn and Felix have him beat. When Duke Fraldarius smiles at Sylvain and tells him good morning, Sylvain knows that he’s being looked at as a person, not a bloodline with legs. “You should stay here, Fe,” Sylvain tells him with a smile, and bops him on the nose because Felix hates it when he does that. Sure enough, he bats Sylvain’s hand away, but then rolls and clambers right on top of him, pushing Sylvain onto his back and perching on his stomach with arms crossed. He’s heavier now than he used to be and pretty soon he won’t be able to pull this sort of move, but for now Sylvain can still breathe, so he rolls his eyes and gives Felix his attention. 

“I’m going to come protect you,” Felix declares, turning his nose up imperiously. “Because you’re not allowed to die.”

“I’m not going to die,” Sylvain scoffs, but Felix’s frown just grows tighter. 

“You almost did! You almost...you almost…” And Sylvain remembers how Felix had gotten Glenn to ride him north so he could wait for Sylvain to be found in the snowstorm, how scared he’d been, crying for Sylvain until Sylvain was able to cry for himself.

He would have died of embarrassment if Ingrid or Dimitri had seen him crying like he cried that night. But Felix is different. Felix has always been a little different.

“So I’m going with you and if your brother tries anything, I’ll cut his hand off!” declares the child on Sylvain’s chest, and suddenly there’s a knife in his hand, gleaming in the starlight. 

“Where’d you get a knife?” Sylvain yelps, wanting to squirm away but at the same time terrified to. 

Felix seems a bit putoff by his reaction. “It’s just a little dagger. Glenn gave it to me last year.” He shifts off of Sylvain and stabs the air a few times. “See? No one can hurt you now.” He tucks the dagger into a little belt Sylvain hadn’t noticed beneath his shirt. 

Sylvain turns his head into his pillow and smiles. Felix is usually so mature for his age, and a dagger isn’t a usual accessory for a child, but he looks very young at this moment, so proud of his little knife and what he thinks he can achieve with it. 

“Sylvain.” A finger pokes his shoulder. “Sylvain.” When Sylvain rolls back over to face Felix, Felix grabs the blankets and tugs them over them both in a sort of fort. The light of the stars goes out, and their combined breathing heats the space quickly. “Sylvain,” Felix says, mature once more, “You’re not allowed to die. I don’t know what I’d do if you died.” 

Sylvain shuts his eyes and thinks of snow and the call of wolves and the way he stopped being able to feel his hands at the end of the second day, how the blizzard had pelted his face to the point he wasn’t sure what was snow and what was frozen tears. “I can’t stop myself from dying, Fe,” he answers softly. 

“Right.” He can feel the motion in the blanket of Felix bobbing his head up and down, even if he can’t see it. “Which is why I’ll protect you! I’ll protect you from anyone! So if you die, it’s only because they killed me first.” 

It’s a ridiculous statement for a seven year old to make, but of all four of them, Felix is the one most intimately acquainted with death. Dimitri barely remembers his birth mother, Sylvain has a healthy dysfunctional family, Ingrid’s family is a similarly still-alive mess, but Felix and Glenn waited out their mother’s labor for hours before the healer and the midwife came out of the room bloodstained and exhausted, merely to shake their heads at Rodrigue. Sylvain had ridden down when he’d heard the news, met Dimitri on the road and found Ingrid already there, holding both Glenn and Felix to her. So Sylvain can’t say that Felix simply doesn’t understand death and therefore is able to speak of it so easy. He speaks of it so easy, Sylvain knows by now, because Felix means it. 

“Well, if they were trying to kill you,” Sylvain whispers back, “I’d jump in and protect you too. So they’d have to kill me first as well.” 

He can imagine the pout on Felix’s face just fine. “Ugh, I wouldn’t need protecting! But, okay, if I ever need protecting, you can do it. So...I guess we protect each other. But since we’d both die protecting each other... then we die together. Like real knights!” 

Dying together sounds like something Sylvain would like to happen a long way off, but he pokes his head out of the blankets and yanks on Felix’s wrists until they’re huddled together and he can actually see Felix’s eyes, warm like honey and bright with excitement. Saints. Sometimes Sylvain doesn’t feel like he deserves the love he receives from them all. Ingrid. Dimitri. Glenn even. And Felix’s love that is tight hugs and daggers and an adoration Sylvain hopes he’s able to uphold. He never wants to see that light in his eyes dim in any way. 

Sylvain holds up a finger and Felix immediately hooks his through, determination written all over his face. “We’re gonna stick together,” Sylvain promises. “Through everything.” 

“I’m not allowed to die without you, and you’re not allowed to die without me,” Felix adds, shaking their fingers. 

“Stick together until we die together,” Sylvain agrees, and shakes as well. They unhook their fingers after a silent moment of letting The Promise sink in, and then Felix burrows into Sylvain’s chest and sticks his cold feet against Sylvain’s leg. 

“I’m sleeping here.” 

Sylvain rolls his eyes. He’s never had any luck stopping Felix from doing exactly what he wants. “Yeah, yeah, budge over, you’re squishing my arm.” 

They fall asleep tangled together in the blankets, one of Felix’s hands fisted in Sylvain’s shirt. In three days, Sylvain takes a carriage north once more, but The Promise burns in him, a little bonfire that won’t be put out. 

Stick together until we die together. I guess that means you’re stuck with me Fraldarius.

Because here's the deal:

We’re simply a forever sort of thing. 

* * *

* * *

_we are such flighty birds, such utter romantics._

_we will kiss each other on open mouths_

_and breathe promises into existence_

-Alison Malee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!! If you like, keep an eye out for epilogue chapters, which I'll publish as separate stories in a series that you can read if you wish. One gooey wedding part where they're in love and it's absolutely sickening and then that *cough cough* wedding night chapter with the more smut I talked about a while ago. Those should both go up fairly soon, so, like I said, keep an eye out if that interests you!
> 
> Otherwise, thank you to everyone who read, who left kudos, who left me one of those wonderful wonderful reviews I'd like to press in a book like flowers just to take out and read again when I'm feeling discouraged, thank you thank you thank you thank you. This is actually the last story I plan to publish on ao3 because it's time for me to turn my attention to original projects, and I'm glad it was writing for wonderful people like you~
> 
> Anyhow this is my 130k essay on why Sylvix is Good and also they love each other the end.


End file.
